INDIA 
INKLINGS 



MARGARET T. 
APPLECART H 




Book 1 



A^sr 



Ci)PaRIGHT DEPOSm 



INDIA INKLINGS 



MARGARET T. APPLEGARTH 




Little drops of ink, little lines of pen, 

Make the India Inklings tell us why and when. 




Ink is the friendliest little soul that ever was — and quite the 
Greatest Introducer in the world: "Come now, let me make 
you two acquainted!" is the tune he daily sings, as he writes 
dictionaries to make strange words familiar, arithmetics to make 
slippery sums give proper answers, and geographies to make 
vast continents nod pleasantly to one another. As for story- 
books, perhaps you will be glad to meet even a blot when the 
India Ink uncorks his inklings for you! 



INDIA INKLINGS 

THE STORY OF A BLOT 



BY 
MARGARET T: APPLEGARTH 

Author of "LamfUghters Across the Sea^^ "Missionary 
Stories for Little Folks,** etc. 



WITH INKLINGS DRAWN 
BY THE AUTHOR 




NEW ^vSf YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



<?^ 






COPYRIGHT, 1922, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



INDIA INKLINGS. II 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

OCT 25 '22 

©CU683880 v>^.\. 




HERE ARE ALL THE STORY CHAPTERS 



They call this page a "Table of Contents" in 
grown-up books, as if you were invited to sit down 
and order a meal from a menu card; but it never 
would do to eat an Inkling (ask grandfather in 
Chapter XIII) . So I really like our way the best, 
don't you? 

I Only a Blot, 15 

II The Story That Ends Twice, 22 

III When Manikam Minded His Mother, 31 

IV My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, 40 

V One to Begin, Two to Make Ready, and Three 

to Go! 51 

VI Guess Again, 63 

VII Church-Bell Billy Turns Into a Book-Seller, 73 

VIII Mr. Pied Piper, M.D., 81 

IX Hide and Go Seek, 92 

X The Trouble-Called-Christmas, 10 1 

XI When Christmas Came to Town, 113 

XII The Worm That Preached a Sermon, 124 

XIII How Grandfather Ate His Relatives, 133 

XIV Cut! Cut! Cut! Ca-da-cut! 142 

XV Manikam Shakes the Tulsi Tree, 151 
XVI Worth Her Weight in Gold, 161 




^ 



AND THESE ARE THE INKLINGS THAT YOU 
WILL SEE 

Ink is the Friendliest Little Soul That Ever Was^^ 

Frontispiece 
Only a Blot, 17 

Blot Plunges into Deep Trouble, 23 
You Can Hardly Blame Manikam, 33 
A Quaint Old Full-Sailed Vessel, 41 
Elephant Tail and Other Tales, 53 
Bonnie Aunt Unpacks Her Household Goods, 65 
You Wonder When Billy Slept, 75 
Village Detectives Hot on the Trail of Mr. Pied 

Piper, M.D., 83 
"You Stay So Short and You Go So Long," 93 
This Inkling, Alas ! Has a Blinkling, 103 
The Stars Looked Down, 115 
How Dearly the New Christians Prized God*s House, 

125 
New Inklings About Little Drops of Water, 135 
Machamma's Hen, 143 
Tin Lizzie Shakes Tulsi Tree, 153 
Angel Weighs Her as She Sleeps^ 163 

ix 




Little drops of ink, little lines of pen, 

Make the India Inklings tell us why and when. 

AND THESE ARE THE PEOPLE YOU WILL 
READ ABOUT 

DEVIDAS, the villain of this tale, I fear; although he 
did the best he knew, and eventually lived out the 
meaning of his Indian name, "Servant of God." 
Meanwhile imagine naming his daughter — 

MACHAMMA (our heroine) who began by being only 
a Blot, who ended by being Joy. 

PITCH AM MA, her dear puzzled mother, with another 
aU wrong name, meaning "Crazy One." 

MANIKAM, her cousin, that great discoverer of scales 
and clocks and drops of water who brought home 
many inklings of a new life to 

GRANDFATHER 

GRANNY 

UNCLES 

AUNTS 

MRS. DRAKE, only she will really never be called this 
probably, since to Tim and to Tom and to us she 
is "Bonnie Aunt," to the Blot she is "Amma," to 
the morning glories their "Bit-of-Whiteness," 
while to every one else in the Town of the Twisted 
Tulsi Tree she is "Mem Sahib." 

DR. DRAKE, known in India as the "Doctor Sahib," 
but to Tim and Tom as "Uncle Harry," alias "Mr. 
Pied Piper, M.D." 

xi 



the rest of their family. 



xii People You Will Read About 

KRYPAMMA ("Grace"). 
LAKSHMAMMA ("The Fortunate One"). 
DUKHI ("One in Pain"). 
MANORAMA ("Heart's Joy"). 

RICHER-THAN-RUBIES, the little brown saint, who 

was their Bible woman. 
SATHIAVADAM, that brown man of wisdom, teacher 

of boys. 



Three wise men 
^who brought pre- 
cious gifts to the 
Saviour. 



NURSAI (with a crick in his back 
from gathering fagots) 

PURUSHOTHAM (the carpenter) 

CHUNDER SINGH (the farmer) J 

TIM and TOM, the Twinnies, who walk in and out of 
these pages trailing clouds of glory, and mailing 
a dozen nice things to India which you really might 
mail yourself, now that youVe had an inkling or 
two of what's needed. 

'As for the queer little pictures, they are only put in 
this hook to show Tim and Tom {and you, of 
course) the kind of Inklings almost any pen will 
draw when dipped in 




INDIA INKLINGS 




INDIA INKLINGS 



ONLY A BLOT 

^^OBODY dared tell the baby's father 1 The grand- 
-^^ mother said that as for her she simply couldn't 
and wouldn't. 

"Then you do it 1" said the Old Aunt. 

"No, no! You're oldest, you tell him," urged the 
Youngest Aunt. 

Whereupon all the in-between aunts and cousins and 
neighbors wagged their heads sympathetically. Here 
was a fix, indeed: who would tell the father that he 
was a. father? For plainly, nobody wanted to! So 
the little new baby obligingly settled the dreadful ques- 
tion by lifting up its brand-new voice and wailing as 
loud as it could, which was surprisingly louder than 
any one dreamed it would be, considering how inex- 
perienced the baby was at howling. In fact, it was 
such an altogether satisfactory howl that it reached 
the ears of Devidas, the father, as he came sauntering 
down the street under the cocoanut palm-trees, and 
he hurried indoors with his face beaming. 

"Ah!" he called. "Did I not hear the voice of a 
little son calling me?" 

IS 



16 India Inklings 

"Salaam, oh, lord and master," quailed the Old 
Aunt, wringing her poor brown hands, ''we have bad 
news to break to you ; for your son is a daughter, alas ! 
alas!" 

He could hardly believe his ears. "A d-daughter?" 
he stammered. "But how could the gods send me a 
daughter, woman? Surely not after I have spent all 
those many rupees on that rich feast for the temple 
priests — and after all those other rupees I gave to repair 
the idol car — and those sumptuous offerings of food 
at the shrines — " 

"Alas ! Alas !" groaned the aunts and cousins and 
neighbors in a dismal chorus, wagging their heads in 
utter discouragement. 

One glance at their sorry looks convinced him that 
the longed-for son was indeed a daughter, so he scowled 
at them each and all. "Leave me alone!" he ordered 
in his sternest voice; they meekly backed out of the 
room. But the baby, who did not yet understand this 
business of being so meek and disappearing in silence, 
wailed a still louder wail than before — as if to say: 
"There, father! Better than the last one, wasn't it? 
I should think you'd be pretty proud of a child who 
can howl like this when only two hours old!" 

But Devidas was not proud at all ; he was too much 
upset. Presently he went out and told all his relatives 
how upset he was — a girl, bah! Didn't his youngest 
brother have a son already, the bright little Manikam ? 
Well, he wanted a son, too. Daughters were worse 
than nothing. Yes, the relatives wagged their heads; 
daughters hardly counted. 



Only a Blot 



:i7 




In case you have no Inkling as yet about this business of 
being "only a blot," you will soon find out how conspicuously 
inconvenient it was for Devidas — and Machamma, too! 



Only a Blot 19 

Then he went to the temple to tell the priests, and 
they agreed that it was really too bad, but if he had 
only bought ghee to pour over the idols. . . . 

''Ghee ?" groaned the almost bankrupt father. *'Why 
I did buy melted butter, sirs, don't you remember?" 

Oh, so he had. Well, it was too bad. But the gods 
were probably displeased with him, otherwise it should 
certainly have been a son, after all the trouble he had 
taken. 

All this time the baby was still practicing wails — 
up and up the scale she soared, oh! if she had only 
been a quiet baby! But in that case this book might 
never have been written, for it is a fact that when she 
was noisiest, her grandmother said : "My poor Devidas, 
what will you name your little un- wanted child?" and 
he answered in great disgust: "What do I care what 
she's called, she's nothing but a blot. To-day I had 
dealings with a merchant, and while I was waiting I 
plainly saw him dip his pen in ink and start to do 
the thing called writing, when lo! a splash of ink 
dropped on the paper. 'Macha!' he cried. *Blot! It 
is no good,' and he flung it aside, choosing a fresh sheet. 
Well, this undesirable is also a blunder, not fit to be 
counted in the family." 

So "Blot" she was called, although in the language 
of India it sounds rather lovelier, I think : Machamma; 
but you will soon see that being a Blot feels the same 
in any language. Rather an uncomfortable "feel" ! 

But have you noticed how the Lord God has put 
something into even heathen mothers' hearts which 
makes them love an awkward, lonely child the very 



20 India Inklings 

best o£ all? So Pitchamma, her mother, loved Ma- 
chamma in secret, and tried patiently to teach her 
quiet ways and gentle habits, so that she might not 
disturb that Man of Wrath, her father. But you only 
need to look at the blot in this book to see that although 
it never says a single word, yet every time you turn 
the page there it is! Quiet, perhaps, but, oh! so con- 
spicuously noticeable. Thus, every time he came in- 
doors, Devidas saw Machamma, and wished he knew 
some easy plan for getting rid of her. Which, you 
must admit, was not a very cheerful way to start be- 
ing a baby ! 

But Machamma made the best of it. Indeed, she 
was bubbling over with such delightful little secrets 
of her own that it was a year or two before it dawned 
on her what a blot she was; you see, the first year 
there were her ten fascinating brown toes to be counted 
over and over again ; or, lying on her back, there were 
the thousand tickly flies to play with while they buzzed 
and buzzed and buzzed the drowsiest of lullabies. 
Then the second year she was very busy exploring 
this queer place she lived in, with its mud walls and 
its straw roof and cracks in its earthen floor where 
grains of rice and corn had fallen once upon a time, 
and still lay wedged for little brown fingers to pry 
loose. Not a nook nor a cranny was there into which 
Machamma did not creep, except alas ! into her father's 
heart, for she had already begun to discover the truth 
about the blot business, so that by the time she reached 
the Mud-Pie-Age she would drop even the fattest and 



Only a Blot 21 

most bewitching of these little pies and scoot pell-mell 
to hide in the folds of her mother's saree when she 
heard him coming. Yet all on account of a mud pie, 
she . . . but that is another story ! 



II 

THE STORY THAT ENDS TWICE 

nr^HERE is this to be said about mud pies: you 
simply cannot make them successfully out of 
plain dust. The dust needs to be properly wet; and 
in India there is not a drop of rain for nine months 
of the year — this was one of those dry-season months, 
yet here was Machamma wanting more than anything 
else to make pies, but altogether hindered because there 
was no wetness anywhere. Even the big clay water 
pots stood empty. But she knew where there was 
water : indeed, the most fascinating water in town ! 

It stood in a tiny corked vase up on the god-shelf, 
with the row of painted idols, and there was a story 
about it, although she never properly understood why 
any one should go to so much trouble for such a very 
little bit of water. Why not dip up all you wanted 
from the village well right here at home ? But it seems 
that once upon a time her grandfather had wanted to 
find peace. They tell you in India that the best pos- 
sible way to find peace is to go off on a search for 
it, so he went on a very long pilgrimage, with all 
his rupees and annas (Indian coins) tied into a corner 
of his turban. When he left, Machamma was only 
a baby; when he returned, she was three years old — 
and from the stories he told Machamma knew there 
could hardly be one temple in all India where he did 

22 



Blot Plunges into Deep Trouble 23 




Here is an inkling about a sad sprinkling that made a mud 
pie and plunged our little Blot into deep trouble! 



The Story That Ends Twice 25 

not stop to worship, seeking peace, and giving an anna 
to the priest so that the idol might be awakened. 

For idols, it seems, although carved from wood or 
stone to sit motionless from one year's end to the other, 
sometimes go off on spirit journeys; or — even with 
eyes staring wide open — they take naps. What would 
be the good of traveling weary miles to worship them 
if they took no notice? But priests who live in tem- 
ples understand the ways of idols, and for a little 
money they will beat a gong to recall the gods from 
their journeys or arouse them from their slumbers. 
You can see what an expensive thing this continual 
rousing would be to a grandfather absent from home 
for two years, and how one by one every coin tied 
up in his turban would be given away. But by that 
time he had reached the River Ganges; and the River 
Ganges is like no other water on earth. Every inch 
of it is sacred, the Hindus will tell you; every drop 
of it is holy. People who bathe in it lose all their 
sins, and people who die on its banks go straight to 
Nirvana. 

You may be sure that Machamma's grandfather 
bathed in it (with ten thousand other pilgrims!) and 
it occurred to him that if he only took some Ganges 
water home with him his troubles would be over. So 
he filled a little vase, and started all those weary miles 
toward home. Villagers along the route treated him 
with marvelous respect, for had he not been at the 
Ganges? And was he not, therefore, blessed of the 
gods? They gave him curry and rice for his meals, 
and asked leave to touch his precious vase, for per- 



26 India Inklings 

haps this might be the nearest they would ever come 
to gaining peace. 

And it was this very vase of water at which the 
thoughtless Machamma stood gazing wistfully on the 
day when her mud pies proved mudless. How she did 
wish she were taller ! She stood on tiptoe and stretched 
out her little brown arm as high as it would reach, 
but the god-shelf was still higher. There are ways 
of growing tall-in-a-minute, however; and the quick- 
est of these is to stand on something. 

Families in India who sit on the floor with their 
legs tucked under them do not have chairs or tables 
in their homes, of course; but there is generally a 
basket somewhere. Machamma found one and dragged 
it directly under the shelf. Climbing on top, she 
reached for that just-too-high vase. Girls who are 
blots really should not do such things, but Machamma, 
alas! was most successful in her grasping, and pres- 
ently went pattering out-of-doors to make the most 
delightful mud you ever saw. 

'1 won't use all the water right away," said she 
to herself, like a very economical housekeeper. "I'll 
make it last!" So she dabbled and puddled and patted 
a quaint little shape, with such complete forgetting of 
everything else that it was just as if she were alone 
in a world without people. Whereas all the time some 
one was coming nearer step by step. Some one who 
thought she was only a blot was provoked to find a 
blot having such a blissful time, — humming, I declare! 
Some one who looked a little closer gave a gasp of 
astonishment, then a roar of rage . . . and the first 



The Story That Ends Twice 27 

thing poor Machamma knew, she was not f eehng alone 
in the world at all, for some one was shaking her so 
violently that the palm-trees seemed to dance a dizzy 
jig before her eyes and her teeth rattled noisily against 
each other, 

"You horrible child ! You wretch of a girl — where 
did you get that sacred vase? Speak up! Are you 
daft? Are you brainless? Tell me." 

It was hardly sensible of Devidas to shake her quite 
so hard and then expect an answer, for Machamma 
was too busy catching her breath to manage a sen- 
tence. 

"You provoking little baggage ! You girl-nuisance ! 
Speak — is this indeed my father's sacred vase of holy 
Ganges water?'* 

Machamma choked out a few words : "All t-t-t-that's 
1-1-1-left, b-but I'll f-f-fill it f-f-from t-the w-w-well 
again, f-father." 

"Fill it with ordinary village water?" gasped her 
outraged father. "You're crazy!" And such really 
dreadful things happened to her then that surely you 
will not care to hear how heathen fathers treat their 
little heathen daughters ; but the bruises on Machamma's 
arm could tell a story, the tears in Machamma's eyes 
could tell a story, — to me those tears seem far more 
precious than that dirty stagnant water from the 
Ganges ; so I am glad that after all the awfulness was 
over, there was Machamma's mother to creep in on 
tiptoe and gather the little girl in her arms : "Oh, little 
Apple-of-My-Eye, how couldst thou do this foolish- 
ness? Have I not told thee often not to touch their 



28 India Inklings 

things? To keep out of their way? Oh, my little 
Jar-of-Milk-and-Honey, did they hurt thee? Thy 
mother feels that hurting, also!" 

The little Jar-of-Milk-and-Honey clung to those dear 
arms; oh, I really do not know what little heathen 
girls would do if God had not made mothers lov- 
ing .. . 

But all this time a solemn family conference was 
going on about Machamma's mud pie. Grandfather 
said how could it be just a mud pie any more, now 
that it was mixed with sacred water? So the first 
thing anybody knew he and his sons went to see the 
village idol maker. 

"There is a thought in my head," said grandfather, 
"that from mud like this you could make us a god." 

"W-well," hesitated the man who made idols, "of 
course I might. It is not a thing I ever did before, 
however — ^to use other people's mud! But I can see 
that this is not ordinary earth any longer. It will cost 
you many rupees, but I don't suppose mere money 
makes a difference to troubled heads like yours." 

"Money makes a great deal of difference," Ma- 
chamma's uncles replied in a scandalized chorus. "We 
are poor. We have little rice for our stomachs. We 
have many mouths to feed. How much will you 
charge ?" 

You should have heard the bickering and bargaining! 

"That fellow is trying to take the very eyebrows 
off our faces !" sighed Devidas. 

"He will drive us to drown in the well!" cried 
Manikam's father. 



The Story That Ends Twice 29 

"He thinks we are rich Brahmans V- sneered grand- 
father. 

"Not much," snapped the idol-maker, and spat on 
the ground in disgust. "You want such a cheap idol 
it will do you no good! Take your mud elsewhere, 
I beg you." 

Then every one suddenly noticed a thing they should 
have thought of before. The mud was no longer mud ! 
All by itself it had dried into the shape Machamma 
had made — her funny little pie was now baked as 
hard as could be by the heat of India. 

"In that case, of course," said the idol-maker, shrug- 
ging his shoulders, "I should have to wet it all over 
again with more Ganges water in order to mold it 
anew." 

"Impostor ! Cheat ! Sly dog !" gasped grandfather. 
"Do you think I would trust you with my few remain- 
ing drops of water? I must save them for the time 
when I die! But I see your craftiness, you who have 
never traveled all those weary miles would set aside 
my Ganges water for yourself and use ordinary liquid 
in molding us an idol ! I see your plot ! I know you ! 
Come, my sons, let us be gone — we dare not trust the 
little that remains in that vase to any mortal." 

"True!" said Machamma's father. 

"Wise, indeed!" said Manikam's father. 

"Sensible!" agreed the other sons. 

"But what to do with the mud pie?" worried grand- 
father. 

"Put it on the god-shelf, of course," Devidas sug- 
gested. And at sunset time those six grown men 



30 India Inklings 

walked down the village street carrying that silly little 
cake of earth ; but it was a serious thing to them — for 
there was water in that earth which had taken two 
long years of pilgrimage to gain. A little slice of 
grandfather's "peace" was lost in it; so up on the shelf 
it went, elbowing the painted idols ; and down in grand- 
father's heart was a sense of worship toward it and 
every morning granny laid a flower before it, or a 
little rice. So that it was almost as if Machamma 
had brought them a new god ! 

But this story ends twice; and by and by you shall 
hear of another God whom Machamma also brought 
home to them: a very real God, not made of mud 
or daubed with paint. Yet in the weary meantime 
Machamma lies whimpering in the corner, for bruises 
hurt, and this little maker of images does not dream 
that she will ever be a Voice crying in the wilderness : 
''Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the 
desert a highway for our God.'* 



Ill 

WHEN MANIKAM MINDED HIS MOTHER 

"1% /TACHAMMA crouched in a corner and looked at 
■^^■^ her cousin Manikam with the roundest eyes in 
India. For Manikam would not do the thing his 
mother ordered. Manikam never minded his mother. 
Boys weren't expected to! Oh, how grand it must 
be to thrash around with your arms hitting everybody 
in sight and shouting: "I won't! I won't! I won't! 
I won't go near that dreadful big thing. I won't hang 
a wreath of marigolds around its neck. They are 
paper marigolds, anyway. I won't go! I won't! I 
won't! I won't light the incense stick — I wovft!" 

**Just listen to this fine little grandson of mine," 
said granny. "None of my own sons ever showed such 
a fine spirit." 

"None of them ever got his own way like Manikam 
does," snickered the Old Aunt gleefully. "Look at the 
bruise he made on my arm! He's a fine strong boy. 
A big brave boy." 

All the in-between aunts began chanting a sing-song 
chorus : "Manikam is brave — he knows he is his 
mother's oldest son — he knows he does not have to 
mind her — oldest sons never mind their mothers — they 
are brave — they know that some day she will have to 
mind themT 

Even down in her safe corner Machamma shuddered. 

31 



32 India Inklings 

Suppose he should come near her with those fists! 
But oh, how grand to be a boy and get your own way 1 
How often Pitchamma had whispered to her Httle 
daughter that if she would only be very, very good 
all her life the gods might turn her into a boy when 
she died. Think of coming back to the earth as a hoy. 
To be born again as a hoy. No wonder all the girls 
were wishing it ! Boys were always right. They had 
their own way. They bossed the women around. They 
did not mind grannies or Old Aunts. The more noise 
they made and the crosser they grew, the more people 
said: "Splendid boy! A son to be proud of! A son 
to brag about in the market-place!'* 

Quite different from being a Blot, thought Ma- 
chamma. A silent, tongue-tied Blot! 

Then into this scene of Manikam's noise came grand- 
father. Things quieted down. Every one stood stock- 
still. 

"What is this all about?" asked grandfather. 

Manikam strutted up and down the room, waving 
a disgusted hand : "These women keep plaguing me to 
go to the temple. They want me to worship the idol. 
I will not worship that idol. He stares at me with big 
white eyes. He grins at me with big red lips. He 
has big strong fingers. He towers way up in the air. 
He is dreadful to look at! I do not want to hang a 
wreath of marigolds around his neck. I won't go near 
him!" 

Grandfather winked his eye at the Old Aunt : "That's 
the way to talk ! But don't you know that idol is just 
wood? He can't move his strong fingers to grab 



you Can Hardly Blame Manikam 33 




You can hardly blame Manikam for not wanting to get near 
enough to garland this hideous, unlovable idol; cocoanut-throwing 
was more fun, but unsuccessful, alas ! 



When Manikam Minded His Mother Si* 

you. These women have gone the wrong way about 
urging you, of course. Women have no brains in their 
heads. But you and I will go to the temple together. 
We will take some rice on a big green leaf.'' 

"But I am very hungry for that rice myself/' groaned 
Manikam, rubbing his empty stomach. 

"Of course you are hungry. Aren't we all hungry? 
Isn't there famine in town? Nobody has enough to 
eat, for the rains do not come and the crops are dying. 
Maybe the god is hungry, my boy; maybe he is angry 
because you never kneel to worship him; maybe he 
would like it if you garlanded him and prayed: *0h, 
send us food! Send us rain!' He really might send 
it, you know. You never can tell what will tickle their 
fancy." 

So Manikam minded his mother by minding his 
grandfather. Boys had to*mind Indian grandfathers! 
Manikam marched off carrying the snowy rice on his 
green leaf. The priest struck a gong which echoed all 
through the temple, then they went inside. It was 
dark and gruesome after the blinding sunlight out- 
doors. In spite of the heat, Manikam shivered. But 
just as they told him to do, he knelt and laid the rice 
on the big painted knees of the idol. 

"Send us rain ! Send us food ! Be pleased to send 
us rain! Be pleased to send us food!" he piped out 
in a thin little voice that sent cold shudders down his 
back. 

Then he was lifted high up to loop his paper garland 
around the dreadful wooden neck and to pray into that 



36 India Inklings 

mammoth wooden ear: ''We beseech thee, hear us! 
We beseech thee, hear us." 

And that was all anybody could do, of course. 

But just as he and his grandfather left the temple, 
he looked over his shoulder to be sure that those evil 
hands were not clutching at his little bare legs, when 
lo! he saw a strange sight: the priest was eating the 
rice! 

"I wanted that rice myself," Manikam cried. "I am 
hollow all up and down inside me. Why does he eat 
it ? What will the god do to him ? Will he strike him 
dead?" 

*Tut! tut!" mumbled grandfather. "You talk too 
much. Those silly women spoil you." But he also 
would have liked the rice. He felt very thin and 
old and tired. He hoped the god would like to have 
his priest so plump and well fed from eating every- 
body's offerings. Of course one never knew what 
would take an idoFs fickle fancy. . . . 

Quite evidently it made no difference to them that 
one small scared boy had hung his garland and gone 
without his supper. After a rainless week of waiting 
the priests agreed it would be well to give their god 
an outing. Perhaps he was bored indoors. 

You never saw a stranger sight in all your life: 
that monstrous doll-like image taking a ride through 
the streets in a great gold cart. Shining it was! 
Gleaming it was ! Much decorated it was ! And drawn 
by a hundred hot, perspiring Brahmans. 

Everybody in town watched it go by, shouting, sing- 
ing, dancingjj praying, surging left and surging right, 



When Manikam Minded His Mother 37 

yelling, screaming, swarming around the golden wheels, 
beating their breasts and crying : "Remember us once 
more! Remember us and save us!" 

This was the day when Manikam really did mind his 
mother. 

"Sweet little son," she said, "see — here are two 
cocoanuts. I was saving them for ourselves, but this 
is such a grand festival, surely we should please the 
idol and not ourselves. So take the cocoanuts, lad; 
and when the cart comes past throw them carefully, 
aim them directly under the wheels. For if the cocoa- 
nuts break, then good luck will be ours !" 

Manikam grinned. This was more in his line. 
"Watch me!" he boasted, and flung the first cocoanut. 
But it rolled far astray and a Brahman priest picked 
it up. 

"Oh, throw straighter, lad!" 

Manikam minded. 

Plop! went the second cocoanut — crash! splash! It 
had broken on the wheels. 

"Now the idol will send us good luck !" cried grand- 
father. 

"Good luck!" echoed the uncles, all of whom were 
hungry. 

"Good luck !" repeated the aunts, much hungrier than 
the uncles, — since men eat first in India and women 
have only their leavings. 

"Good luck is on its way to us," chirped Machamma 
to herself, skipping a feeble little skip of joy, and 
painting pictures in her mind of the things they would 
be eating soon, when this famine was over. 



38 India Inklings 

But she waited. 

And waited. 

And waited! 

The middle aunt fell sick. She died. She was too 
hungry to wait another minute. 

The weather grew sizzling hot. The grass was 
burned to a cinder. The wells dried up. The pools 
dried up. The cattle hung their heads, and their tongues 
lolled out of their mouths pantingly. Everybody 
seemed to be sick. You never knew in the evening 
who would be gone by morning. The low-caste people 
who were hired to beat drums beat them from morn- 
ing till night to drive away the evil cholera spirits. 

It was all people could do to keep the precious Tulsi 
tree alive. 

Manikam was disgusted. 

''Where are the gods anyway? Why did they take 
my rice? Why did they take my cocoanuts? Why 
don't they do something?" 

"Alas," sighed granny, "the gods seem to have for- 
gotten us." 

"The gods must hate the town of the Twisted Tulsi 
Tree!" groaned grandfather. 

"Maybe they are just off a journey somewhere," 
sighed Devidas. 

"Maybe they are asleep," ventured Pitchamma. 

"They are so hard to please," everybody agreed. 

"Why are they hard to please?" asked Manikam. 
"How can pieces of wood be so cruel?" 

"How, indeed ! You talk too much," said his father. 
"These women have spoiled you. You will never 



When Manikam Minded His Mother 39 

discover this riddle of the gods — why they dehght to 
plague us and tease us and starve us." 

"Some day I will discover that riddle !" boasted Man- 
ikam. 

Wonderful of him ! sighed Machamma. Boys could 
do anything! Little dreaming that she was going to 
discover the riddle also. 



IV 

MY BONNIE LIES OVER THE OCEAN 

A LL this time, over in America, there was Bonnie 
-^^ Aunt. Tim and Tom were quite sure that there 
was no one in the world (except their mother, of 
course) who was quite as beautiful as Bonnie Aunt: 
she had golden hair and adorable twinkles like stars 
in her eyes, and when she laughed she sounded like 
lovely little bells. Her real name was Anne Laurence, 
but her friends thought this seemed so much like a 
quaint old ballad that they called her * 'Bonnie Annie 
Laurie," which the twins had shortened into Bonnie 
Aunt. A very precious person, not at all the kind 
to be parted from — ever. Yet one very rainy day she 
came over to see their mother, and although the visit 
began just as visits should, the first thing anybody 
knew mother was crying as if her heart would break 
while Bonnie Aunt kept saying : "Oh, please don't take 
it this way, Dora; I'll be home again in seven years. 
It won't seem hke any time at all!" 

Their mother could not agree to this thought, but 
she dried her eyes and smiled like rainbows after April 
showers as she said : *'You're the bravest, dearest girl 
in all the world, Annie Laurie,, and I'm going to be 
enormously proud of you !" 

All of which was a deep mystery to Tim and Tom, 
of course; so on the first free moment they cornered 

40 



Quaint Old Full-Sailed Vessel 41 




When you were very little and used to hum "My Bonnie Lies 
Over the Ocean," it probably called up in your mind's eye some 
quaint, old, full-sailed vessel on the deep blue sea. The beautiful 
part of it is that on every such deep blue sea, for hundreds and 
hundreds of years, there has always been a ship a-sailing carrying 
some one on board, like Bonnie Aunt, who has heard the 
Saviour's Go Ye, and has set forth with Bibles and pills to 
"take a town." 



My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean 43 

Bonnie Aunt and put her through a course of ques- 
tionings. 

"You made mother cry !" Tim accused her. 

"I know it !" agreed Bonnie Aunt. "But she ended 
up by smiling.'' 

"Yes, but that was just the kind of smile you smile 
outside when you aren't nearly through crying inside 
yet. We know, don't we, Tom ?" 

Tom nodded, and immediately asked: "Where is 
this place you are going that will take seven years 
before you get back?" 

"Little pitchers have big ears !" she smiled, shaking 
her finger at him. "Well, my dears, it's a big place 
called India. Did you ever hear of it?" 

"Of course!" cried Tim. 

"It's in the geography!" cried Tom. 

"Indeed it is, Twinnies. And I suppose you know 
by this time that places on a map are generally alive 
with people. So I'm going over there to live with 
some of them." 

"The very idea!" Tim reproved her. "Aren't we 
good enough to live with?" 

"That's the trouble: you're much, much too good." 

Tom chuckled ; for it must be admitted that goodness 
never had seemed his specialty before ! But Tim, being 
a girl, was not nearly so much concerned with her 
own apparent perfections as with the awful fact that 
Bonnie Aunt was going somewhere where the people 
were not good at all. "Will they be dreadfully bad?" 
she asked breathlessly, with visions of pirates and ogres 
and villains parading before her mind's eye. 



44 India Inklings 

"No," Bonnie Aunt assured her, tenderly, "not 
wicked at all, just very mistaken in all their ways. So 
we're going over to tell them a better way." 

'Wef cried Tim, pouncing on that one astonishing 
little word. "Oh, then you aren't going to India all 
alone?" 

"No, I thouglit maybe Fd get married!" (And her 
cheeks were suddenly quite pink.) 

Here was news, indeed, to Tim; but Tom skipped 
over all this nonsense of husbands and weddings, de- 
manding to know exactly what Bonnie Aunt and this 
husband-person were going to he over in India, any- 
how. 

"I think," said Bonnie Aunt slowly and thought- 
fully, "that we will be — soldiers." 

Tom looked at her in grave doubt. "But you're only 
a lady, so how can you fight ? And do you know how 
to shoot a gun?" 

"Even ladies make passable soldiers," she protested, 
"and we shan't need guns. You see, we're going to 
be Christian soldiers, the kind you sing about in church : 
'Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war.' It's 
a totally different kind of war from that horrible 
affair in Europe recently. In our war, instead of guns 
we are to use Bibles and pills." 

Tom was speechless. 

"I think it sounds risky, Bonnie Aunt," Tim said, 
patting her arm. "Bibles are all right for ministers 
to get sermons from, and for Sunday-school lessons, 
but you can't fight with them. They're too little and 
too soft and — " 



My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean 45 

Bonnie Aunt reached over to pick up a Bible from 
the table. "Twinnies," she said, "there isn't a gun in 
the whole world that can do what this Book does! 
An ordinary soldier takes his gun, and his captain tells 
him where to shoot. Bingt Bing! — and somebody's 
dead. Or, shoulder to shoulder, a whole regiment of 
soldiers turn their guns on some little town belonging 
to the enemy ; all day long there is the ceaseless Boom! 
Boom! Boom! of giant guns, and by nightfall there 
are smoldering ruins, roofless houses, dead men in the 
streets, cripples everywhere, a few cowering widows, 
a few wailing orphans. That's how guns 'take a town,' 
isn't it?" 

The twins nodded their two heads and stared with 
their four spellbound eyes. 

"Well, we're being sent over the ocean by our Cap- 
tain to 'take a town,' too. But we're going to love it 
into surrendering! Love it with Bibles and pills, till 
the widows and orphans and cripples are well and whole 
and happy. We shall need to start a little church 
and a little school and a little hospital. Oh, I expect 
we shall be very busy making ourselves go around into 
all the places where they will need us !" 

"Somehow, you seem too little and golden to go so 
far away," Tim cried, still patting the precious arm. 

"They mustn't go hurting you, off there!" Tom 
growled in a let-me-catch-them-trying-it sort of voice. 

"Oh, they won't," Bonnie Aunt assured him. "I 
think they will find, deep down in their hearts, that 
they are hungry for my Book." 

So in the course of time there was the prettiest wed- 



46 India Inklings 

ding ever held in that city, with the organ thundering 
forth ''Here Comes the Bride" and the bridesmaids 
in prim yellow dresses and the bride all shimmering 
white, — very, very happy. 

"Xot a bit like a soldier, though," thought Tom with 
some misgi\angs ; but fortunately the groom looked 
strong enough for two. Since he was the only uncle 
the twins had ever had, they decided he was going to 
prove a good investment ! Although his idea of a 
honeymoon was like nothing Tim had ever heard of 
before. For imagine the bridegroom spending his first 
six months as an interne in a New York hospital, riding 
in ambulances to accidents, at everybody's beck and 
call from morning till night ! 

''What w411 Bonnie Aunt be doing with herself all 
that time?" 

"Xow don't you go worrying about that young lady's 
feeling lonesome, my dears ! She's planning to cram 
her nice little head so full of new ideas that I'm in 
grave danger of being crowded out of her memory : 
she's going to study in a Bible Training School all 
morning, take a Home Nursing course all afternoon, 
and finish oft the day by attending sociological-philan- 
thropic-social-service lectures all evening. . . ." 

"Oh. my!" breathed the twins in a weak duet. 

''Exactly!" agreed the groom, very solemnly. 
"Fancy ha\'ing any one so wondrous wise in the fam- 
ily! It's a compliment none of us deserve." 

"I think," said Tim, bashfully, ''that you probably 
know a lot yourself, only you don't let on !" 

"Hear! Hear!" cried the new uncle. "Just for 



My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean 47 

that, I will send you an elephant as soon as ever I 
get to India." 

"A big one?" Tom inquired anxiously. 

"Betwixt and between, sir ! And now I really think 
this poor bridegroom ought to shake hands with the 
departing wedding guests." 

As he strode away, Tim sighed : "I think he's going 
to be an awfully suitable uncle for us." 

"Suitable?" sniffed Tom. "Why he's— he's— />^r- 
fectr 

Six months later, all the Laurences went to New 
York to see "My Bonnie go over her ocean." But this 
is part of the story to be skipped, for the grown-up 
part of the family were crying, Tim detested the shrill 
whistles shrieking on Bonnie Aunt's ship, Tom thought 
it a mean shame that he could not be a sailor then and 
there. (A ship seen near-to was too wonderful to 
leave!) Altogether it was not a pleasant day, and 
when the left-behind part of the family boarded the 
train that would carry them back to their home in 
Ohio, Mrs. Laurence was glad that the twins had dis- 
covered a game which could last all day. A game 
called "Steeples." 

Of course they had always known that there were 
church spires in their own city. With two good eyes 
you were sure to notice one on any walk you chose to 
take. But they had not realized that America was 
such a land-of-spires until their train went flying west- 
ward. Tom sat on one side of the car, Tim on the 
other, counting; and it is a fact that in almost every 



48 India Inklings 

place they dashed through Tim would call : "My town 
has a steeple ! A white one, Tom." 'That's nothing/' 
Tom called back, "there's one on my side of the 
track, too," 

Steeples never seemed to fail ! Except in one small 
town where not a spire was visible. Tom never quite 
forgave that town for being on his side, especially as 
Tim said that if it had been on her side there would 
have had to be a steeple, or she'd know the reason why ! 
(As if she could have stepped off the train and built 
one then and there!) 

"Mother, it's the only place in all America that has 
no church, I guess," Tom said. "Why don't they?" 

"Perhaps they meet in the schoolhouse on Sundays," 
she suggested. Then when it grew too dark to count 
steeples, the twins sat down beside her and asked a 
few questions : Why were there spires ? What were 
they for? 

"I think," said Mrs. Lawrence, "that spires tower- 
ing up in the sky are God's exclamation points — ^like 
this: 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
and the thing they cry to men is : Watch ! Look ! Lis- 
ten!' Half the people are so busy doing their own 
things that they bustle past and never notice steeples 
or think of God at all; probably that is why some 
churches hang a bell up in their spires, ringing it one 

day in seven : 

'Ding-dong, 

Is something wrong? ^ 

Come here, 

God's near I' 



My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean 49 

So some people go to sit in the pews, while others stay 
home. Or perhaps there's a light in the steeple to 
remind us all through the night that God Himself is 
light and that we must carry our church to those who 
sit in darkness, just as Bonnie Aunt is carrying it over 
the ocean this very minute." 

** Carrying our church f Oh, mother, how could she? 
The steeple would surely have toppled over and spilled 
all along the railroad track long before it reached the 
ocean, and it weighs such tons and tons it surely would 
sink the ship !" 

"Silly!'' laughed Tom. "You don*t mean the stone- 
and-brick church, do you, mother ?" 

She shook her head. "A church is the love and 
the service of God in the hearts of a group of Chris- 
tians! And love can go anywhere; and service can 
be tied up in very little bundles ! You could even tie 
it up yourselves to mail to India." 

"How?" they questioned eagerly. 

"Scrapbooks," she answered, ticking the things off 
on her fingers, "old postals with fresh paper pasted 
over the used part; little dressed dolls that button and 
unbutton ; pencils ; pads ; pins ; oh, a dozen little happy 
things — " 

"We'd love to!" 

"We could get our friends to help!'* 

"We could have a Box Party!" 

"We could buy things with our birthday money !" 

"We could earn money by collecting old newspapers 
to sell to the ragman !" 

"We could have a little fair!" 



50 India Inklings 

Even the colored porter had an inkhng of the fun 
this was going to be, for as he turned their seats into 
amusing Httle beds behind green curtains he said, grin- 
ning: "I 'spect dat lady am gwine ter git a powerful 
monstrous box! I reckon dey'll jess have ter charter 
one of dem freight steamers ter fetch it over de ocean, 
MeeddeywiUr 



ONE TO BEGIN, TWO TO MAKE READY, AND THREE TO GO ! 

EAR TWINNIES, 



D 



"The time has come^ the walrus said, 

"To talk of many things — 

Of ships and sails and sealing-wax 

And cabbages and kings, 

'And why the sea is boiling hot. 

And whether pigs have wings — " 

I don't know about winged pigs, my dears, but now 
that at last your Bonnie lies over the ocean she could 
write volumes on ships and sails and sealing-wax (to 
fasten us on deck, of course), and when we skimmed 
through the Red (Hot!) Sea we knew it was boiling! 
Then came two dreadful days when the winds blew 
the waves mountain-high and hollowed them out valley- 
deep, so that the front end of our boat knocked down 
the stars while the back end plunged straight through 
to Kalamazoo. Very unexpected, and I should have 
worried more about it only in another two days we 
were on dry land. And, oh, my dears, India is a dry 
land! Not a drop of rain ever falls for nine months 
of the year, anyhow ; and this year it skipped the other 
three months also. 

It is such a brown land that we are glad the brown 
people wear such bright colors, the men in gaudy tur- 
bans — big bulby affairs — look for all the world like 

51 



52 India Inklings 

giant tulips marching around a garden. The little 
brown ladies wear sarees draped and looped around 
them without a pin or a button anywhere. It worries 
me ! For every other minute they have to loop them- 
selves in place all over again, then reloop, then re- 
reloop, then re-re-reloop, etc., all day long. Their 
little tinkling bracelets and necklaces and anklets look 
charming; but what would you say to an ear-ring 
dangling from your nosef The little brown children 
seem to wear nothing at all, maybe a bead or two ; but 
if s so hot, and they don't need much. 

And what do you suppose we two big grown-ups 
are doing? Learning to read and write, of course! 
Every blessed morning we rise with the sun; about 
seven o'clock our school begins. The politest munshi 
(teacher) in a huge scarlet turban comes in salaaming 
— that's the way to say How do you do? in India; 
instead of shaking hands, touch your right hand grace- 
fully against your forehead and say "Salaam!" I 
love it! Also it's the one remark I'm sure of saying 
properly. Our munshi tucks his legs under him and 
very solemnly seats himself on the floor, while his 
school seat themselves upon two chairs and look down 
very solemnly at "Teacher." New languages are the 
slipperiest things to learn — you think you have that 
nice little new word pigeonholed ready to use, but 
when you hurry for it, there's just the hole. I'm all 
hole! Your new uncle is quite at the head of our 
school, I assure you; but then I'm always next to the 
head. (Please don't say I have to be, since there are 
only two scholars.) 



Elephant Tail and Other Tales 53 




Here 



an 



elephant 
tail 
and 
other 
tales ^ 
which 
an 

elephant 
who 
keeps 
his 



eyes 
open 
can 
see almost any day in India I 



One, Two, Three, Go! 55 

The quicker we learn the language, the quicker we 
can begin doing the big work waiting for us to do in 
that dear little village somewhere to which we shall 
be assigned. I read the other day that "if a missionary 
had begun to visit the villages of India on the day 
Christ was born, and had preached the gospel in one 
village each day from then until now, he would not yet 
have reached but half the villages !'* So you see why 
we are eager to begin, for there are only 5,000 of us 
missionaries for 300,000,000 persons; if you do a little 
sum in long division you will discover that this gives 
each missionary 600,000 persons to reach. That is 
twice as big as the city you live in! So I haven't a 
minute to lose, have I ? Your busy,, loving 

Bonnie Aunt. 

• • • • .». ;•! >] 

Salaam, oh, Tim, oh, Tom! 

It is raining like cats and dogs (a kitten and a puppy 
have just landed on the window-sill!) and all India is 
sighing with relief that eighteen months of drought are 
ended. Yesterday there didn't seem to be a drop in 
sight, and we had our first (maybe our last) elephant 
ride. Your brave and valiant aunt prefers the wildest 
storm ever brewed on the Atlantic-Mediterranean-Red- 
or-any-other-sea ! But personally I thought elephant- 
eering rather tame sport. 

The only peculiar part is getting on board the wee, 
modest, timid, little beastie. Even with his legs neatly 
folded under him he towers up into the air like a 
young mountain, so we had to provide a stepladder to 
reach the little veranda-affair on his back. Very cozy 



56 India Inklings 

we all felt, wedged into that howdah like pieces of a 
picture puzzle. Then the driver said G'dap. And the 
elephant g' dapped ! He had to begin doing it with his 
hind legs first, so we all lurched forward rather wildly. 
Your aunt had visions of herself plunging into mid-air, 
so she threw her arms around the neck of the very- 
proper English lady who was giving us the ride. A 
Duchess she was, too! Imagine being so familiar 
right away ; but she was very nice about being choked, 
even though Bonnie Aunt could not be persuaded to 
release the Duchess until the elephant had unfolded all 
his remaining legs, lurching us to all points of the 
compass. When he was finally all "up," Bonnie Aunt 
freed our hostess and was so mortified to have choked 
a Duchess nearly to death (they are getting scarce, too) 
that she made matters worse by saying she had sup- 
posed she was strangling me! Missionary doctors are 
even scarcer than duchesses, and a bit more important, 
I think. 

I sent you an elephant to-day ; hoping he may prove 
satisfactory to all parties concerned, I am 

Your affectionate uncle, 

Harry. 

r»' >" '•' !• • .•- • 

!Mr. William B. Laurence, D.O.O.U. 

Dear Will : I have been so busy for several months 
that letters have been impossible, but this brief note 
is to inform you, sir, that you now belong to the 
Distinguished Order of Uncles, sir ; your new nephew 
having arrived two days ago and looking so exactly 
like you that we instantly named him William Laurence 



One, Two, Three, Go! 57 

Drake. A very healthy youngster with such a remark- 
able voice that we think he is destined to make a better 
missionary than either of us. In another three months 
we think the new Billy II. will be transportable to 
whatever village we are assigned, so it will literally be 
a case of One to Begin, Two to Make Ready, and Three 
to Go. 

Will write more later. Love to all of you from us. 
Cordially yours, 

Henry Drake. 

Dear Tim and Tom, 

You deserve a letter in reply to the fine ones you 
sent me, so here goes ! I could even write you in this 
new language, only you would never know what I was 
saying. Sometimes the people here don*t, either ! The 
other day I thought I asked a coolie to carry a trunk 
upstairs at once, whereat his brown skin turned quite 
pale because I had recklessly mixed several sets of 
words and had asked him to spank the punkah boy im- 
mediately. He hated to do it. He begged my pardon 
for refusing. "I am only a poor coolie," he pleaded, 
"but it will make trouble, Sahib, much trouble." 
Calmly I reviewed my beautiful sentence, and calmly 
I assured him he was entirely proper in his attitude. 
I had made a slip. "Ah!" said he to me; but what 
he said to the punkah boy in private I dare not 
think. 

You will be wondering who the punkah boy is. All 
day long he sits and pulls a rope. The rope pulls 
a fan (punkah) in the ceiling. The fan moves the air. 



58 India Inklings 

The air cools the missionaries. Otherwise we might 
sizzle ! The "boy" part of his name is only for looks, 
as our host's punkah boy is a very old man who can 
go to sleep as easily as Billy II. Whenever the fan 
stops blowing, we know that the old fellow is snoozing 
again. Bonnie Aunt never lets me wake him. "He 
looks so awfully tired!" she always pleads. 

"And I'm so awfully warm !" I sigh. So we debate 
his fate : to sleep or not to sleep, that is the question. 

"When I get my own little house in that little town 
of ours I intend to have a very young and nimble 
punkah-puller, whom we can rouse with a clear con- 
science," she says. And I second the motion. 

Which brings me to the question of servants. Did 
you ever hear anybody in America say that missionaries 
are lazy, extravagant creatures with dozens of serv- 
ants? Sit on anybody who says it. Sit on them hard! 
And after they are properly crushed tell them the reason 
why missionaries do have several servants. They have 
to!! They have to have a separate servant to do all 
the different things that must be done : a cook to cook, 
a sweeper (bunghia) to sweep, a dhoti to wash the 
clothes, a mali to work in the garden, a bhisti to carry 
the water from the well, a somebody else to do every 
separate task. "Expensive!" wail the critics? 

Sit on them again, Twinnies. Tell them that wages 
are only a few cents a day so that the punkah boy + the 
bunghia + the dhoti + the mali + the bhisti + the cook 
ff- the everybody else = J^ less than one maid-of -all- 
work in America! For instance, your mother pays 
your laundress $3.60 a day; we pay our washerman- 



One, Two, Three, Go! 59 

dhoti 5 cents a day. So bang goes the extravagance 
of us! 

"I still don't see why they have to have so manyT 
grumble the critics. Sit on them, Tim. Sit on them, 
Tom. Look very wise and answer pityingly: *'Don't 
you really and truly know ? It's on account of caste, 
of course." 

"Indeed!" gasp the critics, who will soon not have 
a leg left to stand on, "I don't see what caste has to 
do with it." 

"Don't you?" smiles Tom. 

"Really?'^ smiles Tim. "Caste is religion turned 
upside-down and wrong-side-out. And this is what 
our uncle tells us :" 

That the Hindu religion teaches that all human 
beings once came from the god Brahma ; the Brahman 
caste sprang from his head, so of course they are 
highest of all peoples and do no menial work; then 
from Brahma's hands and feet and the rest of his 
body came all the lesser castes. (Over 2,000 of 
them!) And each caste must do one special thing: 
was your great-grandfather a sweeper ? Then the god 
Brahma intended grandfather to be a sweeper also; 
and later, your father had no choice, he too must be 
a sweeper; as for you, of course you've got to be a 
sweeper or else disgrace the family and displease the 
gods. What? you think sweeping is a horrid dusty 
occupation ? No doubt ; but caste is caste, a sweeper is 
a sweeper. Always has been; always will be. The 
gods have spoken it! Who is man to change things? 
Moreover when a sweeper-man marries he must marry 



60 India Inklings 

a sweeper-woman. And the goldsmith famihes dare 
not eat a meal with the lowly sweeper families; and 
the farmer folk — though lowly — never go to dinner 
with the sweepers either. So two thousand separate 
castes divide all India in little cliques and factions, 
weavers may not marry carpenters, nor potters marry 
water-carriers, gardeners may not dine with washer- 
men, and so it goes, with the lordly Brahmans wor- 
shiped by the others. Each caste lives in a palem, or 
on separate streets ; but in the Brahman streets no out- 
caste man must go, since even the shadow of such 
'^untouchables" falling on Brahman food or Brahman 
drinking water would instantly spoil it for use. Poor 
outcastes ! There are about fifty million of them, too 
wretched to belong to any caste at all. They live out- 
side the village walls in poverty you never dreamed of. 

So now you know why Indian servants may do 
only one thing and why we can't employ a Jack-of -all- 
trades or a maid-of -all- work. There are none! Ex- 
cept a few new Christians to whom Bibles and pills 
and love have brought a kinder religion. 

Aren't you glad we're here and learning the ropes 
as fast as can be ? 

Your busy Uncle Harry. 
• •••••• 

You dear "Run-About" Tim and "Fun-About" Tom, 

Billy and I thought we would get out the India 
Ink-bottle and drop you an inkling or two this morn- 
ing. His part was cooing and gurgling at every word 
and trying to pick them up before they dried. This was 
so hard on the letter that his ayah came in and picked 



One, Two, Three, Go! 61 

him up! An ayah is an Indian nurse. Billyhs is a 
dear brown saint, who has already brought up two 
other famihes of missionary children, so she has a 
way with white babies that is truly marvelous. Billy 
reels long sentences at her in his toothless language 
and she knows exactly what he means, which is more 
than Dr. and Mrs. Henry Drake know. In two months 
when we move to our precious little own town ("Town 
of the Twisted Tulsi Tree," it's called) the ayah will 
come with us to care for Billy. 

To-day I went to call on the loveliest Hindu lady. 
All in a turquoise blue silk saree she was (gold-bor- 
dered), with a pink silk under jacket, and a lavender 
veil over her head — a dream! And jewels enough to 
fill a store. They flashed and flamed and sparkled, 
until I thought she was the most ravishing lady in 
the world. But in five minutes I discovered she had 
never been outside her zenana walls, had never learned 
to read or write, had been married when she was 
twelve, and was bored to death at the age of nineteen. 

"What do you do with yourself?'* I asked. 

"In the morning I sit on the blue pillows," she said, 
"and in the afternoon on the green pillows." It 
sounded very stupid. I think I was one of the most 
exciting things that had ever happened to her: my 
hair and my clothes and my hat. Yet I was shocked 
to find that after I left, she would undoubtedly have to 
have all those lovely garments laundered and take a 
bath herself in order to purify herself against my 
''contaminating presence." You see, your Bonnie Aunt 



62 India Inklings 

is really an outcaste, an "untouchable'' in her haughty 
eyes! 

Speaking of zenanas, I hope you are not like the 
poor English globe-trotter who said in despair: 
"Where is this famous place every one talks about 
called Zenana ? I can't find it on a map or in the time- 
table!" Ignorant man, little he dreams that no man 
ever gets into a zenana except a husband or near rela- 
tive, since it is the women's part of a high caste home — 
"curtain women" they are called because they must 
hide behind the purdah (curtain). Do you wonder I 
say "run-about" Tim and "fun-about" Tom? For 
freedom and fun are two of the things we hope to 
bring to our little Town of the Twisted Tulsi Tree. 
We count the days till we can go ! Lovingly, 

Bonnie Aunt. 



VI 

GUESS AGAIN 

ONE day there was the greatest possible commo- 
tion in the Town of the Twisted Tulsi Tree. 
The news was spread from one end to the other that 
people who were white-all-over had come in a bullock 
cart that morning. They had come to live! One of 
them was a "she," but you ought to see her hair! 
Something curiously sad had happened to it, so that 
all the proper blackness had washed away, leaving it 
gold color. Had anybody ever heard of gold hair 
before? Nobody had. They could not believe their 
ears, and hurried to poke their heads inside the door- 
way of the house: there "she" was, just as the news 
had said — skin all faded, hair astonishingly gold, even 
her eyes impossibly colored. Weren't eyes always 
brown? Of course! And oh, the things she had on 
for clothes ! Most amusing. Poor woman. 

"What do you call those things on your feet?" 
somebody asked. 

"Shoes," explained the obliging newcomer. The 
least you could say about her was that she was pleas- 
ant, although what with visitors and stray dogs and 
pecking hens meandering around she was interrupted 
a dozen times a minute 

"What's that thing for?" some one else asked as the 
man-person unwrapped a four-legged wooden creature. 

63 



64 India Inklings 

"It's a chair," explained the pale gold lady, and 
smilingly sat down on it to show how sit-able chairs 
are! Much wagging of heads among the uninvited 
guests; they could not imagine why any one should 
want to perch midway between the floor and the roof, 
they had supposed that floors were plenty good enough 
to sit on, with legs tucked underneath — ^possibly a mat, 
if your saree was new. Indeed, there seemed to be no 
end to the amusements to be seen in this house of the 
white sahibs ! Everybody came to call, not only once 
that first day, but as often as they could manage a 
visit in between times, 

"We seem destined to be popular !" the gentleman re- 
marked in English, mopping his brow. 

"Harry, just suppose they keep on being so curious ! 
How can I be pleasant forever when they muss every- 
thing and pick everything up and track dust every- 
where and watch every littlest move I make !" 

"Oh, yes, you can! You're managing beautifully. 
This is what we came for, anyway: to be looked at 
and talked over and — fallen in love with ! I can sym- 
pathize with them, for I felt the same insane interest 
in you when I first saw you, myself !" 

Just as she was twinkling one of her delightful 
smiles at him, new heads poked around the doorway 
and another avalanche of the same old questions was 
sprung on her: how old was she? was her hair real? 
was this her husband? didn't it hurt to be white-all- 
over? did her husband ever beat her? No! Well, 
wasn't she a lucky woman? Had she any children? 
Oh, one son ! Where was he ? why did she wear such 



Bonnie Aunt Unpacks Her Goods 65 

If ever any people had new Thinklings, it was on the day when 
Bonnie Aunt unpacked her household goods ; for who in the 
Town of the Twisted Tulsi Tree had an Inkling that human 
beings needed such peculiar things as — 




z: 



Guess Again 67 

a lot of clothes in such warm weather? what were all 
the seeds for up and down the front of her clothes? 
buttons ? what were they for ? could you see out of blue 
eyes as well as out of brown eyes? how old was she? 
did her husband have another wife? no! how lovely! 
didn't those things on her feet pinch horribly ? did they 
come off? What — every night? why only at night? 
why wear them in the day-time? what were they good 
for ? could this little son of mine have this little round 
silver thing ? no ! the lady says no, Metaya ! 

Over and over and over the same astonished ques- 
tions until Bonnie Aunt became rather rattled and 
found herself saying that chairs were meant to sleep 
on, pillows were very good to eat, knives and forks 
were used in writing. If all the little girls would 
come to her school to-morrow she would soon show 
them what she meant. Hadn't they known that girls 
could read? But, of course, they could. As well as 
boys! 

Deeply mystified, the callers sauntered home discus- 
sing these new arrivals. One by one the great silver 
stars pricked through the darkness of the evening sky, 
and the Drakes looked at each other, tired but 
laughing. 

"What?" he said, "are we alone?" 

"We seem to be !" she answered softly. Then they 
went to the doorway to look up at the same stars that 
Tim and Tom had seen so short a while before, and 
Bonnie Aunt whispered : 

"Starlight, star bright. 
Hear the wish I wish to-night/^ 



68 India Inklings 

"Tell me the wish/' begged Dr. Drake. 

"Ah, but you know it, for you're wishing it, tool" 
So a few minutes later they went in to have the first 
family prayers that were ever prayed to the Saviour 
in the Town of the Twisted Tulsi Tree. 

And that was their first day. 

The second was so much like it that it was really 
impossible to get settled at all, while starting school 
was out of the question. But Bonnie Aunt talked 
about school every time she had a chance (there were 
dozens and dozens of chances, too!) until mothers 
everywhere went home to discuss this startling news 
with the village fathers. One of the women who 
talked it over, said pleadingly : 

"Oh, master, the new white woman says she can 
teach little girls to read and write! Would it not 
please you to let Machamma try this new thing?'* 

Devidas put back his head and laughed. 

Grandfather put back his head and laughed. 

The uncles put back their heads and laughed. 

Then all of them looked at the little Blot whose 
hands were clasped beseechingly. 

"What?" sneered Devidas, "teach her to read?'' 

"Girls have no brains," said grandfather; "I have 
lived to be an old man and I never knew a woman 
with brains." 

Devidas waved his hand : "Don't trouble me further, 
woman! Just send the little red hen to school — 
maybe a hen could learn reading and writing, but 
Machamma? Never! It is a joke! The very gods 



Guess Again 69 

would hold their sides and laugh to see a girl trying 
to be a boy.'' 

"Oh!" begged Machamma, her great brown eyes 
pleading the words she could not get courage to say. 

"Little idiot, be gone !" snapped her father. 

And the uncles laughed loudly. 

Machamma cried. 

"Tut! Tut!" corrected granny, sternly, "don't be 
so foolish. Your own father never read anything in 
all his life, your uncles never read anything, your 
grandfather never read anything; why should you put 
on such airs ? Thinking you can do what grown men 
can not do. I tell you, it's just one of those fairy 
stories any stranger from far away likes to stuff into 
gullible ears." 

"White folks must eat the fruit of madness to sug- 
gest these wild things," chuckled the Youngest Aunt. 

"Keep still," mumbled the Old Aunt, "time enough 
for you to gabble when Manikam learns to read." 

Grandfather nodded: "I see no reason why Mani- 
kam should not go to the school. The white Sahib 
has a Hindu fellow with him to teach that school. A 
brown Hindu is safer than a white Sahib." 

"Very much safer," said Devidas. 

"And Manikam is a boy. It would be well for him 
to learn to read. Only the very high caste know this 
thing called reading — a Brahman here and there, or a 
merchant or two." 

"Manikam may get to be as wise as a Brahman, just 
fancy!" 



70 India Inklings 

"Fancy!'* echoed the aunts, wagging their heads 
until their ear-rings tinkled. 

But in spite of all this, Machamma really did go to 
school, and it came to pass in the simple way in which 
difficulties are sometimes overcome. She just — went. 
You may think it rather wicked of her, but her mother 
had secretly arranged the little scheme, then ordered 
loudly : "Out from under my feet, tiresome girl ! Get 
thee outdoors, I am too busy to be bothered. Out, I 
say!" (All this for the benefit of Granny and the Old 
Aunt who were forever on hand to overhear every- 
thing!) 

Pretending to leave the house most unwillingly, 
Machamma dragged herself outside; but once there, 
she skipped away on merry feet to this thing-called-a- 
school. 

Now I do hope you are not picturing some grand 
place : all red bricks and stone steps outside, with black- 
boards and nice little desks and ink-wells inside. For 
the truth of the matter is that there was no school to be 
seen anywhere! But there was a banyan tree which 
obligingly sent down shady branches, and under this 
shade the first school in town for girls was opened. 
As for desks, the wriggly pupils would not have known 
what to do with them, for they sat on the ground feel- 
ing perfectly contented that this was the way school 
ought to be. As for blackboards, what could be han- 
dier than the brown dust, with fingers for chalk? 

They began tracing the curious hooks and curves 
of Indian A B C's in this dust, and nearly burst with 
pride when they formed any curve correctly, for what 



Guess Again 71 

<lo you suppose ? Every girl who traced perfect letters 
was promised a wonderful little colored picture which 
had come all the long, long way from ''America" where 
there were whole clans of other white sahibs with gold 
hair. Surely you have guessed already that those won- 
derful pictures were nothing but the old used picture 
post-cards over the backs of which Tim and Tom had 
laboriously pasted clean white sheets of paper. And 
on these sheets of paper Bonnie Aunt had printed in 
her best Indian lettering the little Bible sentence : "God 
is love." You might not think that such a tiny verse 
would finally "take a town," as bomb-shells do in war- 
time. But there never were three words so brimful of 
astonishing meaning — for who in the Town of the 
Twisted Tulsi Tree had ever heard of a God of lovef 
Those little cards, therefore, were Bonnie Aunt's first 
missionary seeds. She knew that, like all seeds, they 
would need careful watering and plenty of sunlight 
before they would sprout ! 

But the strangest thing was what Machamma's card 
accomplished. She had been so afraid that she was not 
going to earn one! Again and again she had had to 
smooth the sandy dust to start anew, but finally she had 
an "almost-perfect" letter. 

"See! See!" she cried, clapping her hands until 
her glass bracelets tinkled musically. 

Bonnie Aunt saw the funny little mistakes bristling 
at every corner of that pattern, but she did not want to 
discourage any of her wee ambitious scholars and 
awarded Machamma the coveted card. Whereupon 
that small maiden became so excited that she com- 



72 India Inklings 

pletely forgot that school was to be kept a secret — she 
flew home as if her heels were winged: ''Look!" she 
cried, "just look ! I've learned the trick called writing! 
I've earned a present. You said I couldn't, but I 
have!" 

Which was quite the longest sentence she had ever 
uttered in the presence of her father and those indif- 
ferent uncles. 

For once in their lives they were so interested in 
Machamma that they forgot her glaring act of dis- 
obedience. Six grown men fingered that Httle card and 
looked at the picture on it, — just an ordinary little 
picture like a dozen of the postals in your home this 
very minute : but I think Tim and Tom feel now that 
this one card was worth all their effort because of the 
lovely thing that came of it ! 

For Devidas said magnanimously: "Who would 
have believed it?" 

"Not I !" sighed each uncle separately. 

"You might as wfell let the Blot try another day of 
school," said grandfather, "for maybe those white 
Boasters aren't as boastful as we supposed. Who 
ever saw a present like this ?" 

"Not I !" sighed each uncle separately. 

And Machamma could hardly wait for morning! 



VII 

CHURCH-BELL BILLY TURNS INTO A BOOK-SELLER 

TT was Sunday morning. But nobody in all that 
-■■ heathen town knew that Sunday was any different 
from Monday ; yet here was Dr. Drake ready to preach 
a sermon and Mrs. Drake anxiously looking down the 
street for the congregation she had been inviting all 
week long. 

"What we need is a church-bell," she sighed (not 
that there was a churchy as yet ; but there was the ban- 
yan tree, of course). 

"Where will you get a church-bell?" asked Dr. 
Drake. 

"Where indeed?" sighed Bonnie Aunt, then she saw 
Billy-Boy! Why not turn him into one? Very se- 
cretly she put him into his baby-carriage and handed 
him the little toy drum which Tim and Tom had sent 
all the way over the ocean. Then she trundled the car- 
riage down the narrow streets and lanes. 

"Thump ! Thump ! Thumpety — thump — thump !" 
banged Billy, chuckling and dimpling all over his dear 
little round face. People came rushing to their door- 
ways to see what in the world was happening. 

"We're on our way to church," Bonnie Aunt called 
out presently, "won't you come along with us ?" 

"We might," said the Weaver families, tagging be- 
hind. 

73 



74 India Inklings 

''Let's see what it's all about!" said the Potters, 
dropping their lumps of moist clay and falling into 
line. 

"Mercy on us! Look at the parade!" gasped the 
Goldsmiths. For the first thing any one knew the pro- 
cession had grown to be twenty persons, then thirty, 
then forty . . . but Dr. Drake had no time to count 
them! He was so surprised to see such a congrega- 
tion arriving that his sermon flew out of his head com- 
pletely; he said afterwards that the only thing he could 
think of was the Bible verse : ''And a little child shall 
lead them.'' (As a matter of fact, however, he 
preached a remarkably good sermon for a man who 
was a doctor; and when it was over, he gave pills to 
those who were sick; so it was a very successful 
Sunday!) 

But the next day Bonnie Aunt noticed a pile of 
Bibles in the bungalow. They had brought them 
from the big city to sell in the Town of the Twisted 
Tulsi Tree, but try as they would nobody would buy 
one. 

"I have no annas," said one man. 

"I do not know how to read," said another. 

"I am too busy," cried a third. 

"Why do you want to give us another god to wor- 
ship?" groaned a fourth. "We have more now than 
we can count on the fingers of two hands." 

Excuses ; excuses ; excuses. 

But Bonnie Aunt remembered Billy-Boy! Might 
he not be a born book-seller? She put him into his 
baby carriage with little Bibles all around him; she 



You Wonder When Billy Slept 75, 




Here are some Inklings to prove what fun a missionary baby- 
can have if he takes life in the proper fashion — ^being a church 
bell, heading parades, selling Bibles and starting Mother's Clubs. 
You wonder when Billy slept ! 



Church-Bell Billy Turns Book-Seller 77 

trundled him down the roadway to a certain shady 
palm tree on the edge of the market-place; then she 
opened one of the Bibles and put it in Billy's hands. 
He looked at it in the greatest surprise, cooing at it 
and wrinkling up his nose at it, so altogether fasci- 
nated that a man passing by said to Bonnie Aunt : 

"Mem Sahib, do I believe my eyes ? Isn't this white 
baby reading?" 

"It almost looks that way," laughed Bonnie Aunt; 
and at that very moment the baby turned over a page ! 
Solemnly, — "like a pundit," the man said afterwards. 

"Well, I never !" he gasped. 

"You really ought to own a copy for yourself," 
Bonnie Aunt said craftily, and was about to lift one 
from the bottom of the baby carriage when Billy-Boy 
did his second lovely trick: crowing with delight he 
poked his Bible up into the stranger's face, as if to say : 
"Just read it for yourself, kind sir; it's very inter- 
esting !" 

You may be sure the Hindu bought the Book (it 
was not a Genesis-to-Revelation Bible, but the gos- 
pels only: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), and 
spread the news through the bazaar that the Mem 
Sahib's infant was a prodigy : 

"Too comical! Sits there reading like a pundit, a 
man of deep learning. Come and see for yourselves." 

So a crowd gathered to see the Baby-Who-Could- 
Read; and Billy-Boy certainly flapped the pages most 
intelligently, although all he said was : "Goo ! Goo !" 

"Amazing!" laughed the bystanders; and a number 
of them bought Bibles, some because they were amused. 



78 India Inklings 

some because they were curious, and some because they 
were hungry for the God of Love this Bible contained. 

"Mem Sahib," asked a woman, "is he really white- 
all-over? Even under his clothes?" 

"Indeed, yes, every inch of him !" Bonnie Aunt as- 
sured her ; and the woman gave a bracelet in exchange 
for a Bible, hoping it would turn her chocolate-colored 
baby white, so he could read ! 

Everywhere that Billy went, Bibles were sure to go, 
after that ; and one day, near the village well, a certain 
mother said enviously : "A Bihle baby is quite different 
from our babies !" 

"Quite different," agreed Bonnie Aunt. 

"Fatter !" sighed the Mother- Whose-Baby- Was 
Weazened-and-Thin. 

"Pleasanter !" sighed another Mother- Whose-Baby- 
Was-a-Prince-of-Wails ! 

"Wiser !" sighed a third Mother-Whose-Baby-Was- 
Blind. 

"How do you make a Bible baby fat and pleasant 
and wise ?" they asked, setting down the great clay jars 
they had brought to the well for water. 

Bonnie Aunt looked at that well; and sighed! It 
was not like our deep country wells here in America, 
but more of a pool. And while she was looking she 
saw strange sights : in the middle of the pool lay a 
buffalo, wallowing around to cool off. Nearby, the 
town washermen were soaking the dirt out of their 
customers' clothes ; little boys were bathing in the wa- 
ter, a woman was washing vegetables ; another woman 
was cleaning her teeth with a stick for a tooth-brush; 



Church-Bell Billy Turns Book-Seller 79 

and that was the water which other women were carry- 
ing home in clay jars to drink ! 

"Bible babies are brought up with pure clean wa- 
ter," Bonnie Aunt cried, "that well water is stagnant 
and filthy. The dirt in it would make a baby blind. It 
would make a baby sick. It would make a baby un- 
pleasant." 

The mothers laughed. 

"Oh, but Mem Sahib, it is all the water we have! 
We were all brought up on that water. It is good wa- 
ter. It is pure water!" 

Bonnie Aunt looked at the buffalo and the washer- 
men and the vegetable-cleaning-woman. Ugh! 

"Are you never sick yourselves ?" she asked. 

"My ear!" cried one woman. 

"See the sores all over me," cried another. 

"Things I eat make me ache inside," sighed a third. 
"It is evil spirits in the food, Mem Sahib. That mer- 
chant puts an evil eye on me !" 

"It is the water, that bad well water," insisted Bon- 
nie Aunt. "If you would only boil the water before 
you use it, you would be better! The Lord God has 
sent me to this village to tell you these things, so that 
you can have Bible babies, too. Fat like Billy ! Pleas- 
ant Hke Billy ! Wise Hke Billy !" 

Billy cooed up into the gentle, wistful brown faces 
all around his mother. "Wa-a-a-a!" he remarked 
solemnly. 

"What is he saying, Mem Sahib?" they asked 
eagerly. 

Bonnie Aunt smiled tenderly: "I think he is invit- 



80 India Inklings 

ing you to come to our bungalow to-morrow after- 
on. 
That evening Bonnie Aunt wrote a letter : — 



noon/' 



Dear properly-brought-up Twinnies, 

There's one missionary in India who is not paid a 
salary, but oh 1 the work he does ! To-day he helped 
me start a Mothers' Club; to-morrow he will nobly 
back me up as I tell the village mothers that cucum- 
bers are really very very bad for little tummies, that 
colic is not caused by evil spirits and cannot be chased 
away by beating drums. That's probably all we can 
do in one afternoon, for I will tell them a Bible story, 
of course; then as they go home I will give each of 
them one of those darling advertisements of babies 
which you cut out of magazines for me and pasted on 
squares of colored cardboard. I know exactly what 
will happen : "Oh, Mem Sahib," they will cry admir- 
ingly, "is this a Jesus Christ baby?" 

"Yes," I will nod, "a Jesus Christ baby." 

And the little unpaid missionary will wag his head 
cooing : "Da-a-a-a !" 

For of course you've guessed he's Billy-Boy, our 
only church-bell, our star Bible-seller, our "Better Baby 
Exhibit." We wonder how we could ever manage 
without him! For Billy 4- those lovely pictures you 
pasted for me = one new idea a day in the Town of 
the Twisted Tulsi Tree. 

With oceans of love (both Atlantic and Pacific!) 
from 

Bonnie Aunt. 



VIII 

MR. PIED PIPER, M.D. 

** *T\/fARY had a little lamb!' '' quoted Bonnie Aunt 
at chota hazri the next morning. (That is 
the way of saying "early breakfast" in India.) 

"Are you referring to anybody in particular ?*' asked 
Dr. Drake. 

"Yes, sir, you, sir !" 

"Meaning?" 

"Manikam, of course. That boy is your very 
shadow, Harry ! His family will forget what he looks 
like, for when is he ever home? He certainly adores 
you." 

"Excuse!" interrupted the House Boy, smiling, 
"but Mem Sahib should see the whole tail of shadows 
which tag after the Doctor Sahib wherever he goes !" 

"The Pied Piper of our hamlet!" Bonnie Aunt ex- 
claimed, clapping her hands. 

Dr. Drake gave an embarrassed laugh : "It's my pills 
and my stethoscope and my bandages ! Manikam be- 
gan it by having an ugly cut on his elbow; because of 
a thimbleful of antiseptic and a two-inch strip of ad- 
hesive plaster he became the hero of the town. The 
other boys couldn't develop ailments fast enough. 
It pays to advertise — on Manikam! In America a 
new doctor hangs out a shingle ; I just hang out Mani- 
kam." 

81 



82 India Inklings 

"And where do yoti hang him ?" asked Bonnie Aunt 
anxiously. 

"Anywhere and nowhere, but especially by the gate- 
posts of my magnificent hospital. He describes its 
glories to all the passersby, he describes the wonders 
of the things-called-beds on which patients sleep half- 
way up to the roof instead of on the floor as they 
must at home. Very soft, he says! Very get-well- 
quick ! Manikam is the one person to whom my hos- 
pital is absolutely perfect." 

"Ah!" sighed Bonnie Aunt. She could joke about 
anything, but not about that hospital. She had thought 
that when she married a doctor he would have a hos- 
pital with entrances and exits and waiting-rooms and 
corridors and snowy cots. Not to mention blue cotton 
nurses and a spotless operating room. But the church 
members of their denomination back home in America 
had no money left over for hospitals — ^they were very 
sorry, couldn't Dr. Drake find some little already-built- 
house that would do for a year or two ? Maybe a hos- 
pital would not be popular right away — in a strange 
town, you know; among people who believed that 
beating a drum and giving rice to an idol was the way 
to cure sickness; etc., etc. They thought up several 
other reasons, too. 

Dr. Drake tried to excuse his church in America. 
But Bonnie Aunt would have none of it ! 

"The idea ! Write them a very positive letter, Harry 
Drake; tell them you can't and you won't use that 
horrid little one-roomed shanty another minute when 
this town is brimful of sick folks. Sicker than any- 



Hot on Trail of Mr. Pied Piper, M.D. 83 




These little village detectives are hot on the trail of Mr. 
Pied Piper, M.D., for — as Manikam complained — he led them 
too merry a chase all day long from the street of the Brahmans 
to the street of the Sweepers, and then (mercy on us!) even into 
the outcaste palem! 



Mr. Pied Piper, M.D. 85 

body ever gets in America! Sick all over! Dirty all 
over! Hot all over! Wilted with heat and hunger! 
Tell them your patients all arrive bringing half a dozen 
relatives, not to mention pots and pans, so that their 
cooking can be done separately in order not to break 
caste by eating from anybody's else pot and pan ! Tell 
them Fm worn to ribbons using all the tact of Solo- 
mon and all the years of Methuselah in shipping half 
those relatives back home and providing separate fires 
and sleeping quarters for the ones who stick! Tell 
them — " 

Dr. Drake put down his tea-cup: "You're wasting 
time, dearest," he sighed, "for this is such a perfectly 
lovely harangue you're firing at me! But I know it 
by heart already. And I can't write it home to Amer- 
ica. Missionaries never do. They wait. And they 
hope. And they pray. And at the end of the year they 
send home statistics. Do you know what statistics 
are?" 

"Of course! They're what nobody ever reads!" 
"Bonnie ! You aren't one of those people who thinks 
that statistics are only neat little rows of figures up 
and down a piece of paper, are you? Statistics, my 
dear,, are Inklings! They are hints which boil down 
into small print the most thrilling adventures in the 
world, and the most tiresome, too. For statistics are 
written by the feet of missionaries plodding through 
narrow lanes, in and out of market-places, up and 
down the rows of hospital cots, into school-rooms. 
Statistics leave out all the backaches and heartaches 



86 India Inklings 

but tell in neat little rows of figures what weVe been 
doing on our side of the world.'* 

''Who's haranguing now, Mr. Pied Piper, M.D.?" 
Bonnie Aunt inquired, with a very lovely look in her 
eyes. "You're a real saint! I think statistics are a 
perfectly odious way to ask for what you deserve. I 
think they ought to be told what a wonderful doctor 
they're wasting." 

"But I'm not wasted! Ask Manikam! Ask Mani- 
kam's mother! Didn't she weave me a wreath of 
marigolds and garland me just as she garlands the 
idols f Of course I'm not quite so popular with her 
now on account of the wild tales he brings home about 
me. That boy! He fires so many questions at me 
that I'm left breathless. He looks at my rows of 
labelled bottles: 'What's in those bottles, Sahib? Do 
they taste good ? Why don't they taste good ? What 
are they made of? Where did you get them? What 
will you do with them? How long will they last? 
How sick must I become to have a pill out of the blue 
bottle? Out of the brown bottle? Out of the white 
bottle? What do the labels say? How soon can I 
write a label ?' He makes the room reel round dizzily ! 
Yet I like it in him. It shows he is waking up. 
What do you suppose he asked for last night?" 

"Can't imagine !" 

"My little laboratory scales. They simply fascinate 
him, and after pestering me for days with questions he 
finally mastered the way they work. So now he wants 
to take them home to weigh the rice they ojfer to the 
family idols. He has always had his suspicions about 



Mr. Pied Piper, M.D. 87 

that rice. Even after a day of belonging to the 
wooden images it never seems to grow any less, he tells 
me; therefore, are the idols really fed? Well, he can 
now prove it to himself by weighing." 

"The first thing you know, Pied Piper, you'll be 
spending every extra minute with those boys. Weren't 
you teaching them football yesterday?'* 

Dr. Drake grunted: ''Teaching F That, my dear, 
was a solo! I did it all alone. The boys seem so 
listless and tired, — old men already, some of them; I 
suppose it's the effect of centuries of hot climate in 
their blood. Anyhow, I longed to get a new back- 
bone into them, so I unpacked my old college football. 
What is it? What do you do with it?' asked Mani- 
kam. Tt's a game boys in America play to make them 
strong. See, you kick it like this ! Fine sport !' " 

"Well, what happened?" asked Bonnie Aunt. 

But it seemed that nothing happened! 

"How much do American boys get paid for playing 
it?" Manikam had asked. ''Nothing f But what a 
lot of trouble to run around kicking such a big ball all 
for nothing! Why not hire a servant to kick it 
around? What's it made of? Leather!! But, 
sahib, we don't dare touch leather — it is unholy. No 
caste boy could do it without losing caste. Leather 
comes from dead animals. It is unholy to touch dead 
animals. They might be ancestors." 

So Dr. Drake rendered his "solo," kicking the foot- 
ball all over the compound, trying to make them see 
what fun it was. . . . 

Enter the House Boy: "Excuse, Sahib. You see 



88 India Inklings 

everybody, but you won't see this old scallawag at the 
door, will you ? I keep telling him and telling him to 
go away. He's no account, Sahib, — one of those un- 
touchables from the outcaste palem. No need to waste 
time on such scum. But there he sits on the door- 
sill, unbudgeable! You can observe him for your- 
self." 

Dr. Drake looked the House Boy up and down: 
"I am never cross," he said calmly, "but I am getting 
cross now. How often must I tell you that I am most 
anxious of all to see these poor people you despise? 
You will now go and say to him in your politest man- 
ner: The doctor will welcome you into his office. 
Kindly step this way, sir.' " 

Bonnie Aunt looked at the House Boy. And he 
looked at her! She nodded. Wagging his turban 
regretfully, he left the room. 

*'He means all right," she laughed. 

*'He acts all wrong," grinned the Pied Piper. 

The little clock chimed seven times, and a new busy 
day had begun. 

It was toward noon, after her own little girl pupils 
had skipped home, that Bonnie Aunt heard the boys 
leaving their school. Then came a knock. 

"Come in," she called. And Manikam entered. 
He had proved for all time that idols do not eat the 
food offered to them : "I weighed the rice," he chuck- 
led, "then I left it a whole day and w^eighed it again. 
The finger of the scales pointed always at the same 
number. But my grandfather is displeased. He says 



Mr. Pied Piper, M.D. 89 

idols eat the spirit of the food. He says if he ever 
catches me weighing anything again it will be the end 
of school for me. And if I turn Christian he will dis- 
own me. I must never darken his door again. My 
mother is very much provoked also. Do you think 
they mean it ?" 

"Yes, they do. We must always go about these new 
things very gently and quietly, Manikam." 

**But my family want me to learn to read, they want 
me to learn to write, but they do not want me to think. 
Yet how can I help thinking when things buzz around 
in my head all day ?" 

"You might try them out on me first," Bonnie Aunt 
suggested. "What sort of things buzz the worst?'' 

''Everything, Mem Sahib. You have brought every- 
thing into my head all at once. Clocks, now ! What 
makes them go ? What makes them tick ? Why does 
the round white part look like Billy's face? Why is 
one black whisker shorter than the other black whis- 
ker ? Why does the long whisker hurry around faster 
than the short one ? Why does the clock make a loud 
noise only when the short whisker sits on a certain 
spot? Where does that loud noise come from? I 
should like to see the inside of one, Mem Sahib." 

"I dare say!" gasped Bonnie Aunt, feeling rather 
limp after explaining clocks as best she could. "Is that 
all that buzzes in your head?" 

"No," said Manikam; "I want to know about your 
pen that swallows the inkbottle ? What makes it suck 
the ink ? How long will it stay fed ?" 

On and on he questioned Bonnie Aunt, and she did 



90 India Inklings 

her best in answering, knowing the boy had a rare 
mind and that it had a whole new world with which 
to grapple. Then he said: "Well, I must be going. 
This is the hour when you lie down so the punkah can 
cool you. Some time I will come again and ask you 
about caste. The Doctor Sahib doesn't seem to know 
there is such a thing! Any hour of any day you can 
see him going from the street of the sweepers to the 
street of the Brahmans; imagine! My grandfather 
says people who are white-all-over are out-castes. Are 
you?" 

"What do you think?" Bonnie Aunt was anxious 
to hear his "buzzing" on this subject. 

But Manikam shook his head. "It is too hard for 
me," he sighed. "Now Machamma, my cousin, is 
nothing but a foolish girl, but she says there is a spe- 
cial caste of white people who sprang from the Lord 
God! She says you are probably the Lord God's 
wife. But excuse her, Mem Sahib, she has no sense, 
that Blot! My uncle will be making a marriage for 
her as soon as he can get her a husband." 

When Manikam left, Bonnie Aunt said to Richer- 
Than-Rubies (the Bible woman) : "I think it is high 
time for you and me to call on the family of Devidas, 
Machamma's father." 

"Oh, Amma," cried Richer-Than-Rubies, "they 
will not let you in ! They will not even let my shadow 
fall inside their front door. That Devidas ! It's good 
he even lets little Machamma come here to school — of 
course there is advantage in her being educated. But 
he hates us bitterly. He beats Machamma for hum- 



Mr. Pied Piper, M.D. 91 

ming our little Jesus-loves-me song to her mother. 
Some day you will probably meet this Pitchamma at 
the village well — having no son, she has to do all the 
heavy work, Amma. Pitchamma is hungry for a God 
like ours, but she cannot believe He is kind to women, 
so I whisper : *Just look at me, Pitchamma ! See how 
kind God has been to me, for I was one of those 
widows. Despised. Outcaste. Untouchable. Biut 
the Saviour looked down in love: "I will lift up this 
Richer-Than-Rubies.'' And He lifted me. Right up! 
Way up!' Pitchamma can see for herself how the 
Saviour can bless a widow-woman, can't she, Amma ?" 
"Yes," said Bonnie Aunt, and kissed the dear brown 
face. The Saviour had no miracle in India as lovely 
as Richer-Than-Rubies. 



IX 

HIDE AND GO SEEK 

TTIDE AND GO SEEK was a somewhat uncom- 
-*• ■*- fortable "game'' which the Drakes played every 
Friday of their Hves. Not that they always succeeded 
in getting away from the Town of the Twisted Tulsi 
Tree to play it, but they always tried. And this is the 
way they generally did it : 

Bright and early one Friday morning there was a 
bullock cart waiting outside the door, with Sathiava- 
dam (the boys' teacher) piling it full of pill-boxes and 
lunch-baskets, stethoscope and surgical dressings, Sun- 
day school cards and charts — not to mention the baby 
organ which was carefully hoisted on board ! 

Indoors the Doctor Sahib had finished chota hazri, 
and suddenly dropped into their one comfortable 
padded chair, as he sighed : "Pretty soft ! Now Bonnie 
Annie Laurie, it's your turn !" 

Bonnie Aunt laughed her dear little laugh and sank 
into the chair with a luxurious sigh. Then up she 
jumped, and those two grown missionaries bowed to 
that upholstered chair : "Farewell, oh chair !" cried Dr. 
Drake. 

"Aren't we ridiculous ?" sighed Bonnie Aunt. 

"Not at all !" he answered. "I see in you the beau- 
tiful princess of a fairy tale, one of those heroic crea- 
tures who slam the palace gates behind them, giving 

92 



'And You Go So Long'^ 



93 




"You stay so short and you go so long!" sighed the poor left- 
behind patients on the days when the Drakes played God's 
beautiful game of Hide-And-Go-Seek. 



Hide and Go Seek 95 

up all cDrrifort and all glory in order to help rescue a 
disguised prince from the dire fate of " 

**Sahib/' said Sathiavadam, salaaming in the door- 
way, ''the bullock cart is in readiness outside, if 
you " 

"Ready !" cried Bonnie Aunt, hoping he had not seen 
them bowing to the chair ! Sathiavadam was a perfect 
dear and had "a way with him" in teaching Hindu 
boys, but he was rather serious. He thought the Mem 
Sahib was sometimes rather frivolous! The Doctor 
Sahib, on the other hand, was perfection. Too busy. 
Too interested. Too much employed with church and 
school and hospital. 

"Sometime, Pied Piper," begged Bonnie Aunt, "you 
tell Sathiavadam how busy I am, too! Just give him 
an inkling of my jobs, dear : school, and mothers' club, 
visiting, classes in lace-making, not to mention house- 
keeping and Billy. Stick up for me, Pied Piper !'* 

"I do!" he laughed, "and only yesterday Sathiava- 
dam commissioned me»to ask you to get him a wife, 
please. 'What kind of a wife?' I asked. 'Educated,' 
he said, 'and with the same attainments as Amma.' " 

"Oh !" sighed Bonnie Aunt, contented. "I feel bet- 
ter. Come on, let's be off!" 

So off they went. 

Jolt! Jounce! Rumble! Rattle! Jounce! Rick- 
ety — rackety — rack! The palm leaf awning of the bul- 
lock cart swishing and swaying. 

"The oxen have started," announced Pied Piper, 
M.D. 

"Really?" asked Bonnie Aunt, as if she did not al- 



96 India Inklings 

ready feel the hairpins slipping out of her hair. Yes, 
actually, one had come loose already ! 

Jolt! Jounce! Jiggle! Bounce! Jounce! Rum- 
hie! Rickety — rackety — rick! Minute after minate, 
hour after hour, — shaking her, quaking her, aching 
her, until Bonnie Aunt began to wonder if her very 
brains were not in danger of scrambling. But this was 
the thing one had to do in playing Hide and Go 
Seek. 

"Alm-m-most t-there,'' said Pied Piper, M.D. pres- 
ently in a queer choppy voice, broken into many sec- 
tions by the rattling and the jouncing. 

"Fm-m-'m a b-bit s-s-stiff,'' Bonnie Aunt answered 
choppily, trying to rid her knees and elbows of the 
pins-and-needles feelings. 

Just ahead she saw a group of people. Waving 
their arms, some of them. Smiling all over their 
faces, some of them. Hurrying forward, some of 
them. Limping as fast as they could, some of them. 

"Oh, Doctor Sahib, I come at dawn. How I've 
waited for you! And see, here's the baby — ^better, 
eh? Doesn't cry like she did. Haven't given her a 
single cucumber since you left. But they laugh at 
me back home. Crazy way to feed a baby, they say! 
Just milk!" 

"Get out of my way, you woman !'' ordered a man 
hobbling in front of her, hitting her aside. "Sahib, 
look at my knee. Very black and blue. Evil spirits 
in it, I guess. Well, can you scare them out, that's 
the question?'* 

"Sahib, you go so long and you stay so short, you 



Hide and Go Seek 97 

never get around to me. But see, Sahib, I have a 
big hurting here. See!" 

That is the way it was everywhere : people pushing 
and jostling to be the first patient! But Bonnie Aunt 
knew what to do, and she started doing it on the 
baby organ. Music? Ah, they loved music, and 
above the babel of voices she sang a hymn . . . half 
the patients straggled away from the Doctor Sahib 
to cluster around her. Then Richer-Than-Rubies told 
them a story of the Lord God, and, oh, the startled 
questions those people asked. If you went on a pil- 
grimage how soon could you rfeach the shrine of this 
God of Love? Was He really kind to women? Mar- 
velous! Ah, they were so hungry for a God like 
that . . . 

Meanwhile Pied Piper M. D. took his patients in 
turn, hearing their aches and pains; to some he gave 
pills, others he bandaged till they puffed with pride 
at the curious sight of themselves criss-crossed with 
gleaming gauze and plasters. He filled their bottles 
with medicine; one little boy who brought no bottle 
and had not a single pice to pay for one found a gourd 
— he broke off the end to let out the seeds and into 
this he stored his capsules for stomach ache, until 
Dr. Drake discovered his plight and gave him a bottle 
for nothing. Indeed, he gave everything for nothing, 
it sometimes seemed to Bonnie Aunt, for they had been 
warned to charge a tiny sum for treatments, as the 
patients would value them more. But what can you 
charge to a man-with-a- family who earns four cents 
a day? Pied Piper M. D. said little of money; but 



98 India Inklings 

a great deal about how not to do it! For instance: 

Old Woman-Crick-in-the-Back said crossly : "I used 
the vaseline every day as you ordered, but I ask you 
— are my sores any better? Just as red! Just as 
itchy ! Bah, it's no good !" 

"How did you use the vaseline?" 

"This way," she said. And rubbed the tiny tin 
tube over the angry red spots! 

"See here," cried Pied Piper, M. D., "it's the oint- 
ment inside that tube that does the work. You forgot 
to unscrew the cap, to squeeze it out this way. Soft, 
isn't it? Soothing, isn't it? Just try it every day 
until I come again." 

"Well," cried the old lady, "I might ! You always 
want your own way, don't you? And here I've been 
►expecting to be well weeks ago." 

So it went until everybody had been attended to: 
•some ignorant, some ungrateful, some hopeless, some 
fascinated. As the bullock cart ambled off to its next 
^top there would always be many voices calling : 

"Oh, must you go? You stay so short and you 
go so long! You are soon lost to us in the dust of 
your cart-wheels. Sahib. Can't you come back to- 
night ? Can't you come back to-morrow ? Come back 
and sit down in our village forever, you and the gold 
lady. We will build you a little house. We will 
garland you with oleanders like the gods. Come back 
and stay, Sahib!" 

Bonnie Aunt always said the same thing as she 
looked back through the dust: "Oh, if there were 
only a dozen of you and me! We aren't enough to 



Hide and Go Seek 99 

go around. It's so pitiful to give them that little hour 
of pills and Bible! Can such hurried snatches of 
help ever 'take a town/ Harry?" 

"God only knows, dear," said the doctor. And 
God did know exactly what a blessing they left be- 
hind at every hurried stop each Friday. Sometimes it 
would be under a grove of mango trees where a group 
would be waiting in one village; by the well in an- 
other hamlet; at the cross-roads, further on; and if 
they ever left an old route to reach new villages they 
often went from house to house seeking the hiddea 
invalids. 

There were adventures on those trips, for once in, 
a strange village their bullock cart was stoned. 

"We don't want you, you people who are white-all- 
over ! You have come to bewitch us ! You have the 
evil eye. Go away!" these hostile people shouted, led 
by their priest who also flung his stones and thought 
it very clever when one of them hit the gold-haired 
woman on the head. 

Bonnie Aunt was so astonished. "I never thought 
they'd try to hurt me!" she exclaimed. 

"The point is — did they?" the Pied Piper asked, 
anxiously examining the spot. 

"Gold hair and a pith hat are good protections," 
she laughed shakily. For it is not pleasant to be hated, 
yet see what grit she had : "Harry, let's go back next 
week ! Let's go back and show them they can't scare 
the friends of God!" 

Then, later, there was the time a thunderstorm 
brewed itself into a terrible tempest, and night fell 



100 India Inklings 

sooner than they expected. In utter darkness the poor 
oxen plodded patiently along something that did not 
seem to be a road at all, for the first thing any one 
knew there was a sickening lurch and everything slid 
backward out of the wagon into water. 

"Bonnie, are you there?" 

"Yes, dear, but I've lost the baby — " 

"Billy f' gasped the startled doctor, trying to swim 
nearer, but tangled hopelessly in weeds. 

"No, no! The baby organ! Billy's home in bed, 
dear man. Do you think this is a river? I'm all 
gummed up in ooze ! We ought to reach shore easily ; 
Where's your hand?" 

Sathiavadam was the only one who had not slid 
out backward, so up in the cart he managed to strike 
a match, and what do you suppose? They were not 
drowning in some dangerous torrent of a river, but 
were stranded waist-deep in a flooded paddy (rice) 
iield! 

"Which probably is the nearest I shall ever come 
to being a rice pudding," Bonnie Aunt wrote home to 
Tim and Tom, "but I am sorry to say that our darling 
baby organ caught pneumonia in one lung from that 
soaking and even my best doctor in all India cannot 
cure her wheeze." 

Hide and Go Seek? Well, maybe it was a game 
that made backs ache; but how else could they spin 
their missionary web north, south, east and west, help- 
ing as the Great Physician helped long years ago when 
He was here among men — healing the sick and preach- 
ing the gospel to the poor and needy. 



X 

THE TROUBLE-CALLED-CHRISTMAS 

13 ONNIE AUNT thought that the dearest sight in 
-*^ the world was her Httle pupils arriving in the 
morning like bits of the rainbow in their gay-colored 
sarees. There would be Lakshmamma in lavender and 
Krupamma in yellow, Dukhi in green and Manorama 
in blue, with Machamma in coral pink. "Looping the 
loops" of their draperies more securely every few 
minutes, and hardly ever very clean,— how could they 
be when they ate in those sarees sitting on the floor 
and slept in those same sarees lying on the floor? 
But Bonnie Aunt said it would never do for such rain- 
bow glory to leave her dusty school dustier than it 
arrived, so the first thing her little pupils did each 
morning was to scamper out and select a clean green 
leaf apiece to sit on, a really big one, of course, so 
that it could be squirmed around on comfortably all 
morning. And Bonnie Aunt talked so continually of 
their sarees that it dawned on them that it really would 
not be much trouble to wash them — ^just walk into the 
village pool, swirl the saree around a few times, and 
walk out again. The sun would dry them out in no 
time at all ! So day by day the Primary Department 
grew spick and span: "spicker and spanner than any 
one else in town," Bonnie Aunt wrote proudly to Tim 
and Tom. 

101 



102 India Inklings 

You must not suppose that the only equipment kept 
on being dust, with fingers for pencils, as it had been 
in those first days. For it was not long before Krup- 
amma was promoted to a slate ! With a squeaky slate 
pencil. The other pupils nearly died of envy at the de- 
lightful scratchiness of Krupamma writing on her slate. 

"Like tigers crackling through the dry jungle grasses 
she sounds!" sighed Dukhi of the green saree, envi- 
ously. 

"Like monkeys cracking open cocoanuts," suggested 
Lakshmamma, sorrowfully. 

Not a girl in school but longed to squeak a little 
louder than Krupamma. They were sure that noise 
proclaimed the scholar! Such attention to letters in 
the sand was never seen in all of India, and one by 
one the others earned slates also. And after slates 
came primers! 

How can I ever tell you what a primer means to 
little girls who never dreamed that girls could read, 
and whose family never dreamed that girls could read? 
It did not seem at all foolish to Machamma to read 
those silly little sentences that appear in primers. 
When she could pick out the words way over on 
page 21 which said: "I see the elephant," etc., she 
thought she certainly had learned almost all there 
was to learn! She even begged to take the primer 
home with her to show her family. 

"I will wrap it in a corner of my saree, Amma. 
See, like this ? And my saree is very clean. I washed 
it yesterday!" 

Could Bonnie Aunt say no? Of course not! For 



This Inkling, Alas! Has a Blinkling 103 




This Inkling, alas! has a blinkling midway in it; but things 
cheer up considerably toward the end when a box arrives in the 
very nick of time from Tim and Tom. 



The Trouble-Called-Christmas 105 

she loved Machamma with the kind of love that hurt 
her in her heart. She kept v^ishing all the time that 
somebody appreciated this little Blot. 

"She's so darling," said Bonnie Aunt to Dr. Drake. 
"Her big brown eyes are the lovingest eyes in India, 
and her smile. . . . Well, when Machamma smiles I 
could part with half of my kingdom.'' 

So Machamma took home the wonderful primer, 
all thumbed and tattered and torn from having brought 
up other pupils in other mission schools; but how 
was Machamma to know that this was not the usual 
appearance of books. She liked them curled at the 
corners. 

She handed the precious volume to her father and 
said as modestly as she could (which was very modest, 
considering the flutter in her heart) : "This is my 
primer." 

Devidas took it and opened it. But, oh, that open- 
ing was a horrible, never-to-be-forgotten thing; for 
he opened it upside-down! And how could a mere 
Blot ever tell her father that he had made a mistake? 
Naturally it couldn't be done. 

"Read here," ordered Devidas, setting his thumb 
in the middle of a page, haphazardly. 

Machamma peered over his shoulder anxiously, try- 
ing her best to read upside-down print, but she couldn't. 
I can't myself, can you? So with gentle politeness 
she held out her hands : "I beg you to let me hold it 
in my hands as we do at school." 

"Ah-ha! Stuff and nonsense," cried her father. 
"I suspected this all along, you little fibber! You 



106 India Inklings 

made it all up! You can't read. No girl can read! 
The white folks simply boasted. I knew it ! I knew it 
from the beginning. If you can read at all, read while 
the book is in my hands, stupid girl. I know a thing 
about reading, myself ! I guess I've seen people read 
before. Have to hold it in your hands, do you? 
Ah-ha!" 

Now here was a fix, indeed. I can't think what would 
have happened if she had not suddenly taken the only 
way out of it. For something certainly led Machamma 
to patter softly around in front of her father and 
kneel down, since then, of course, the print was right- 
side-up and she could read it off quite glibly. 

"This is an elephant," Machamma spelled. "God 
made the elephant. God made the elephant to help 
man. God loves man." 

"Listen! Listen!" shouted granny, much excited. 
"The child actually reads. Just fancy!" 

"Just fancy!'* echoed the aunts. 

"Just fancy!'* echoed the uncles. 

"That's nothing," Manikam said scornfully. "I can 
read, too." 

"You are a boy-chi\d,'* said Devidas. "I had not 
supposed this she-child of mine could ever do this 
thing. Well! Well! It will turn her head." 

So Machamma took the primer back to school, 
hugged under her saree. 

"My father heard me read last night," she said to 
Bonnie Aunt. 

"Didn't he feel proud of you, little Bit of Brown- 
ness?" 



The Trouble-Called-Christmas 107 

"W-well," sighed Machamma, *'it was this way/' 
And she told about the topsy-turvy mistake. 

"Mercy on us !" cried Bonnie Aunt. "Whatever did 
you do, dear heart, for you wouldn't dare to tell him, 
of course?" 

"Oh, no, Amma ; but I whispered to Jesus to please 
help me quick and He put it in my heart to go in front 
of my father, which made the printing proper side 
up, you see," Machamma said with quaint relief. 

Bonnie Aunt said to the doctor that night : "Oh, but 
she has a way with her, that little Blot ! See how tact- 
ful she was ! How quick-witted ! And don't you think 
it's beautiful how close the Saviour seems to be to her? 
She listens with all her ears to our morning Bible 
stories; I'm teaching them the Beatitudes now. Ma- 
chamma grasps the meaning so quickly." 

If Bonnie Aunt loved Machamma perhaps you can 
imagine how Machamma loved her! There was, for 
instance, the matter of names. Bonnie Aunt did not 
know enough of the language yet to say everything 
correctly, but she was so bubbling over with delight 
when her shy rainbows appeared each morning that 
one day she manufactured a new name for them: 
"Good morning, Morning Glories T she cried, — ^but 
half those little red lips pouted downward. What a 
way to talk! (For instead of sounding flowery in 
their ears it actually meant something more like "Day 
witches," which is not so complimentary, after all.) 

Machamma turned on them like a small whirlwind. 
"0/ course, no one else talks this way!" she cried. 
"Amma lies awake all night pulling these names out 



108 India Inklings 

of the love in her heart. Who ever loved us all 
over before but Amma? You smile up your faces, 
you!'^ 

And they smiled them up! They had not quite 
understood before: everything was so new, and the 
white memsahib so different from any one else. But 
if Machamma said it was love, they would take her 
word for it. They, too, accepted "Amma,'' which 
is a Hindu word for mother. 

Then came the Trouble-Called-Christmas. It was 
the quickest, most sudden trouble, and none of the 
Morning Glories could imagine what it was. They 
took three guesses — but even by putting their heads 
together they could not decide : for evidently it was 
not the Chills-and-Fever-Sickness nor the thing called 
Cold-in-the-Head. Besides, the Doctor Sahib could 
cure sicknesses, for didn't everybody in town know 
about that Man Who Couldn't See Out of His Eyes ? 
How the Doctor Sahib had fastened pieces of glass 
on his face (spectacles) so that he saw everything now 
from morning till night? 

"Yes," said Krupamma, "and there was the baby 
who almost choked to death, but didn't the Doctor 
Sahib cure him quick?" 

Oh, yes, decidedly this Trouble-Called-Christmas 
was different. It made Amma cry. 

They had all been in Amma's bungalow having their 
sewing lesson (such fun: needle stick in — needle pull 
out!) when suddenly Amma had looked at a big card 
on the wall divided into little black squares. "Look !" 
said Amma, pointing. "It's so hot I had lost track of 



The Trouble-Called-Christmas 109 

dates, but to-day is the twenty-first, and Monday 
Christmas comes. Christmas. Oh-h!'* And with 
that, tears suddenly rolled out of her blue eyes and 
slipped down her white cheeks. 

Now what could this monster be whose coming on 
Monday made Amma cry? 

"That Christmas!" said Machamma, fiercely doub- 
ling her fists. "If he makes you cry, don't let him 
in! Lock the door on him, Amma! Hide from him, 
Amma !*' 

Bonnie Aunt dried her eyes. "I can't think what 
made me do this silly, silly thing!" she laughed, "but 
all of a sudden I had a quick little vision of America 
at this very minute, with evergreen and holly making 
the house spicy, and sleigh bells jingling through the 
snow, and Tim and Tom trimming the dear Christmas 
Tree. . . ." 

"She's going to cry all over again," nudged Dukhi 
sadly. 

"That Christmas!" Machamma groaned savagely; 
but Bonnie Aunt simply — would — not — cry. She bit 
her lip and smiled up the corners shakily. 

"Christmas," she explained, "is a day, the dearest, 
loveliest, j oiliest day in the whole year. It's a day to 
love from the getting-awake-time to the going-to-bed- 
time, for it's Jesus Christ's birthday, didn't you know ? 
And it can be just exactly as nice in India as in 
America, indeed it can! For I'm going to make it 
so. We'll have a little Christmas party for ourselves. 
We'll have a great big Christmas party for everybody. 
I think . . . yes, I think we will act out the story 



110 India Inklings 

of when Jesus Christ was born, wouldn't you love to? 
So the first Christmas ever celebrated in this town 
will be a joy to all of us. Then how I do hope I can 
have a grand surprise for each of you. It's on its 
way from Tim and Tom, if it only arrives in time. 
I hadn't reaUzed Christmas was so near." 

"What will the surprise look Hke?" asked Dukhi. 

"That would be telling!" smiled Bonnie Aunt. 

"Well, how will the surprise comeT' asked Ma- 
chamma. 

"That's fair enough," laughed Bonnie Aunt. "It 
will come in a box. And the box will come in a bul- 
lock cart down the roadway. But dear me, dear me, 
if the time is so short I must hurry and write that 
little play for us to give!" 

"What will the play be like, Amma?" 

"I haven't decided exactly, but you'll all be in it, 
and our oxen will be in it." 

"Dear! Dear!" giggled the Morning Glories. 
"Suppose the oxen should make a noise in the wrong 
places !" 

"There won't be any wrong places," Bonnie Aunt 
assured them. "Now shoo flies ! Shoo flies ! I must 
write that play, for even if the *sur prise' doesn't come, 
Christmas will. The sewing class is therefore dis- 
missed. No, come back, every one of you; what do 
I see on the floor to hurt bare brown feet ?" 

"Needles!" sang the rainbows, regretfully. They 
were always forgetting! They picked them up and 
poked them in the little puffed-up cushion where Amma 
said needles belonged; then, their bracelets tinkling, 



The Trouble-Called-Christmas 111 

they hurried outdoors and looked longingly down the 
long, straight, dusty roadway. 

Machamma scampered back. "Amma," she cried, 
"there is a speck coming down the road. We think 
it is a bullock cart — the bullock cart. With the sur- 
prises, you know !" 

"Very likely," said Bonnie Aunt, absent-mindedly, 
for she was busy jotting down notes: ^'Have oxen in 
rear; plenty of straw; manger in front/' 

More tinkling of bracelets and Machamma was back. 
"That speck was only old Nursai with fagots of wood 
piled up on his back. Just imagine thinking him a 
whole bullock cart with surprises!'* 

"Just imagine!" echoed Bonnie Aunt, deeply ab- 
sorbed in writing: "Get Richer-Than-Rubies to he 
Mary. How about putting our little Ever-Ready elec- 
tric flashlight in the hay with swaddling clothes around 
it to represent Jesus, the Light of the World?" 

Then came Krupamma. "Amma, the Doctor Sahib 
is coming down the road in a bullock cart." 

"Good!" cried Bonnie Aunt, and left her note about 
shepherds unfinished in order to welcome her husband. 
For he always had things to tell: sad things — glad 
things — mad things — about evil spirits, beatings of 
drums, people who took all their pills in one gulp, 
people who were afraid to take any, people who tried 
beatings and shakings and burnings before they tried 
pills. . . . But this time he had a glad story. 

"There's a big box from Tim and Tom in the 
wagon," he said in the most unconcerned sort of 
way, as if boxes always did reach India in time. Bon- 



112 India Inklings 

nie Aunt beamed with delight. The Morning Glories 
tinkled their bracelets and jingled their anklets by 
clapping and dancing delightedly. 

''That Christmas r crooned Machamma happily; 
but from the way she said it you saw it was with 
little pats of affection, quite different from the earlier 
dread of the Trouble-Called-Christmas. 



XI 

WHEN CHRISTMAS CAME TO TOWN 

"l^f OBODY had dreamed that Christmas was going 
-^ ^ to be so wonderful. Although, as a matter of 
fact, it began all wrong — ^twice! For the beautiful 
"surprise'' for the rainbow pupils nearly melted them 
to tears. 

Brighter and earlier than usual they had come skip- 
ping along under the palm-trees that Monday morn- 
ing, and Bonnie Aunt made them a little speech. 

"On Christmas Day," she said, "God gave us the 
Lord Jesus for our very own. He was all wrapped 
up in swaddling clothes, just a little baby-thing, yet 
nothing was ever quite the same again for the whole 
world. You know all this, for I've told you before, 
haven't I, about the people whom the Lord Christ 
changed ?" 

"Yes, indeed!" 

"There was the man born blind," said Krupamma. 

"That little dead girl to whom Jesus said 'Get up, 
little girl, get up !' " said Dukhi. 

"The children that sat on Jesus' lap one day," said 
Lakshmamma. 

"Yes! So we have kept on giving presents to one 
another ever since, in gladness for that First and Dear- 
est Christmas Present. That's why I'm giving each 

113 



114 India Inklings 

of you a little gift to-day — to show you that happi- 
ness belongs to all who love the Saviour.'* 

So she handed them their dolls, thinking, of course, 
to hear a jolly hubbub and see a merry hopping up 
and down as china babies were hugged in their arms. 
But Christmas went all wrong for five dreadful silent 
minutes. 

The monkeys up in their tree-tops chattered miser- 
ably about it; the birds stopped all their Christmas 
carols — for of course they loved their Maker and 
knew full well what Day this was, yet here were 
maidens blinking on the verge of tears; yes, half of 
them were weeping openly in disappointment. 

"Dear me!" sighed Bonnie Aunt. "What can it 
be?" Then suddenly she saw the dreadful truth: Tim 
had of course sent only flaxen dolls, the kind American 
girls always choose; but these wee brown Hindu 
mothers — oh, tragedy ! what did they want with faded 
dolls when proper hair was always, always, always 
brown? What could she do about it? All in the 
twinkling of an eye? . . . for she must make Christ- 
mas merry! 

Then, inspired, she picked up Machamma's doll: 
"Doesn't she look exactly Hke mef Gold hair ? White 
skin — see ?" 

Such a flash of sudden joy and pride as smiled over 
Machamma's face. "Oh, Amma," she cried, reach- 
ing out hungry arms for the doll, "she's you all over! 
My own precious Bit-of- Whiteness, um'm, um'm !" and 
she crooned a funny little made-up lullaby to make 
that gold-haired dolly feel at home. Then she looked 



The Stars Looked Down 



115 




Think 

of the thinkling 

that must have gone 

on among the stars that 

Christmas night when they looked 

down and got an InkHng of the lovely^ 

thing that was bringing peace and good-will 

to the Town of the Twisted Tulsi Tree. 



When Christmas Came to Town 117 

at the rest of the Primary, still motionless. "Shame on 
you for hurting Amma's feelings. She has the love- 
liest hair in India! Anybody can have brown hair; 
look at the Town of the Twisted Tulsi Tree — full of 
brown hair. So common that even the out castes have 
it. But God loves Amma with a special love, so He 
made her special hair and special cheeks. There 
couldn't be a doll Fd rather have than one that looked 
like AmmaT' 

The startled little mourners picked up their dolls. 
Yes, like Amma! They gave them a half -hug; then 
a three-quarters hug; then a whole hug. "You little 
Bits-of- Whiteness, you!'' they crooned. 

So Christmas started up merrily again, and Amma 
took her little pupils into the hospital where a row 
of patients lay so still and tired. 

"It is the Saviour's birthday," she explained, "so we 
have come to sing a Christmas carol for you !" 

The sick eyes turned toward the little choir; the 
choir hugged their dolls a little nervously, but sang 
with Amma the only Christian song they knew : "Jesus 
Loves Me, This I Know." 

It was not till tiffin (luncheon) that Bonnie Aunt 
heard the "double" of her doll disaster, for the Pied 
Piper had also had a sorry start that morning. He 
had, of course, wanted to give presents to those boys 
who shadowed him around so faithfully and Bonnie 
Aunt had discovered in the famous box from Tom 
and Tim plenty of little wrist watches. Ten-Cent- 
Store kind, that do not go. "But isn't there a nice 
white dial, round like Billy's face, with two painted 



118 India Inklings 

'whiskers' — ^as Manikam once said? The boys will 
be tickled to pieces to have duplicates of your grand 
ticker, Harry." 

Dr. Drake had thought they would. 

But now behold, the boys drew back when he be- 
gan strapping the first watch in place around the 
first brown wrist. 

"That strap is leather ^ Sahib!" they said in a 
shocked chorus. ''Caste boys dare not wear leather 
next their skin! Only outcastes ever touch it. Are 
our families leather workers? Or drum-beaters f^' 

This was a bit of history repeating itself; but both 
Bonnie Aunt and Dr. Drake had completely forgotten 
the football episode. 

"Look here," he said, "do you consider me out- 
caste? Yet I wear a leather wrist watch. I wear a 
leather belt. I wear a pair of leather shoes." 

The boys looked decidedly uneasy. They threw 
longing glances at the desirable watches — ^they had 
never dreamed of owning anything so marvelous — ^but 
how dared they? 

So Christmas came to a dead standstill. 

Nobody knew what to do. 

Dr. Drake was a little impatient over the delay, 
fibr his patients were waiting in the hospital for 
him; yet how could he leave these devoted friends 
present-less ? Then Manikam had the one bright idea 
sure to come to him each day — 

"Sahib," he said, "if you weighed this leather in 
your scales it might tell you something." 

Dr. Drake laughed. Those scales! To Manikam 



When Christmas Came to Town 119 

they could settle any question now. But quick as a 
flash the doctor realized that Ten-Cent-Store wrist 
watches from America could hardly be real leather ; 
why had he not thought of this sooner? Now he 
must pretend to prove it by his scales. . . . 

Very solemnly and silently he balanced a wrist watch 
in the approved scientific fashion which Manikam 
would expect; conscious all the time of two dozen 
pairs of hopeful eyes, waiting eagerly to know their 
fate. 

'' Oilcloth r he announced jubilantly. "Not leather 
at all, but oilcloth painted in humps to look like leather. 
Very deceptive to the eye, but nothing but canvas 
painted brown. Not a parent could object to anything 
so harmless." 

Sighs of relief, and a quick grab for watches. Then 
the sad fact came to light that there were not enough 
watches to go around! Sathiavadam must be very 
poor at counting noses, for only the day before Bonnie 
Aunt had asked him how many boys were now in 
school. 

"Twenty-four," he said. 

Well, here were twenty- four wrist watches. But 
twenty-six scholars. 

Finally Manikam whispered: "It's this way, Sahib. 
Somaya and Sashaya never get counted. They seem 
new, but they're old. They began coming as soon 
as we did, then they got spanked for coming. It was 
uncomfortable, so they stayed home to rest up from 
the spanking. Pretty bad, it was! Then they tried 
school all over again, and were beaten again. Awfully 



120 India Inklings 

strict caste, their parents. Yet they can't seem to 
spank school out of Somaya and Sashaya altogether. 
They start up, then they die down. Yesterday I 
strolled around to their street and said this was going 
to be a very special day at school, perhaps it would 
be worth a spanking. So here they arel'* 

Presentless, too! Their big brown eyes watching 
this whispered conversation wistfully. Would any- 
thing come of it ? 

Something did! 

For the Pied Piper's heart was big and wide and 
friendly: he loathed spankings with a fierce hatred. 

"Somaya and Sashaya," he said, "the wrist watches 
are all gone, I fear, but here is a table covered with 
even nicer gifts. Choose anything you want. Think 
carefully, boys, choose slowly. No hurry, mind you 1" 

Imagine such a treat! Sashaya was all for choos- 
ing something big. First he thought he would take 
a biggish book, but he had hardly been at school enough 
to master reading, so what good would a book be? 
Especially as he had instantly decided on the thing he 
did want, only dared he ask for it ? No, he dared not I 
It was so grand and big and red. With a picture at 
one end of it. It was too much to expect — ^the Sahib 
would undoubtedly shake his head and the other boys 
would cry: "Fie, for shame, Sashaya, a little chap 
like you to ask for that huge block of redness.'* 

The Pied Piper saw that wish popping out of Sas- 
haya's eyes: "Little what's-your-name ; take it, boy! 
Take it, it's yours for the grabbing." 



When Christmas Came to Town 121 

"This?" he quavered, clutching the thing that was 
bigger than his head and shoulders. 

"But, my dear fellow," cried Dr. Drake, "thafs 
just an old empty box ! You don't choose that worth- 
less thing, do you?" 

"It's red, Sahib," the little voice said, "and it's big. 
I like it best !" Sashaya's arms hardly met around it. 

"Then it's yours," the doctor answered gently. Here 
was a boy so starved for things that empty boxes 
seemed desirable, even empty boxes with labels on the 
end reading: "Champion Extra Heavy Woolen Polo 
Sweater." (In India!) 

"You will get spanked over that box," sneered So- 
maya, "it is too big. Where will you hide it? It is 
too red. Father will see it and know where you got 
it. But I will choose something very little. Some- 
thing I can hide. I will choose this pencil. Sahib." 

Sashaya snickered : "You will get spanked over that 
pencil 1 You will draw pictures on the mud walls of 
our hut with it, — for where else can you use it? Fa- 
ther will see ; he will guess where you got it ; and you 
will get spanked. So although it is little, it will be as 
big as my box. We will get spanked. But it is worth 
it." 

"Yes, it is worth it. Christmas is a very nice day, 
Sahib." 

As those twenty-six boys went home with radiant 
faces the Pied Piper said to Bonnie Aunt: "Write 
your choicest Thank You note to Tom and Tim, 
they've helped us bring Christmas to town !" 



122 India Inklings 

But when the silver stars began to prick through the 
sky and the man in the moon smiled down on the 
Town of the Twisted Tulsi Tree, there was some- 
thing even lovelier to see. For Bonnie Aunt's Christ- 
mas pageant was being acted under the stars. Oh, 
such a crowd of parents whose children had received 
watches and dolls that morning, and of neighbors 
who liked to have things going on. Especially with 
oxen lowing in the background, and the white Mem 
Sahib standing up to talk. 'Sh! Hsten to her. . . . 

"We wanted to show you what happened the night 
when Jesus was born," she began, and explained how 
there had been no room for Mary in the village inn, 
so it was in a stable where the little Lord Christ lay 
sleeping. You should have seen the dear brown In- 
dian "Mary" hovering over him. It was Richer- 
Than-Rubies, in her cleanest, whitest saree; and in 
the Saviour's manger there was straw, yet from that 
straw shone forth a lovely light. 

"For our Jesus is the light of all the world," crooned 
Mary, while the oxen munched their hay contentedly. 
Then twelve little Herald Angels on the roof (a very 
low roof!) sang once more that day their only carol — 
"Jesus Loves Me, This I Kjiow"; as for the names 
of those angels, they were Machamma, Krupamma, 
Lakshmamma, Dukhi, etc. Very white they looked 
against the sky, and very sweet they sounded with 
their little treble voices. 

Then came the shepherds, crooks in hands, — Mani- 
kam, Metaya, etc., and peered curiously first at the 
angel visitors, then at the shining manger, while 



When Christmas Came to Town 123 

"Mary" told them all over agair\ what wonderful news 
had come to India. 

Last of all came three kings bearing gifts: old 
Nursai with fagots, Purushotham with a tray of man- 
goes, Chunder Singh with incense scenting all the air. 
And if you think they were not very wise for Wise 
Men, then who in all that town was wiser, since they 
alone had dared "get down into this new religion," as 
you will see in the next chapter. Altogether the Lord 
was born anew in many other hearts that night, when 
Qiristmas came to town. 



XII 

THE WORM THAT PREACHED A SERMON" 

TT was well for Machamma that there was that 
-■' worm and that sermon, for the memory of them 
was safely tucked away in a corner of her mind, wait- 
ing for the day when she would be greatly comforted 
by them. 

For the astonishing worm began at the very front 
page of the Bible and went straight through to the last 
page, simply devouring it as he went along! Yet no- 
body was pleased at such literary tendencies, indeed 
they created quite an uproar — but you must be won- 
dering about the beginning of this story which really 
goes back to that first Sunday when Billy turned into 
a church-bell. Every Sunday after that, church was 
held under the banyan tree until there was such a con- 
gregation that it seemed necessary to build a real meet- 
ing-house. So they took a collection. 

Surely the queerest collection in the world, for up 
stood Purushotham of the carpenter caste, saying that 
he would give four days of time to help build Jesus 
Christ's house. And old Nursai, who was forever 
gathering fagots, arose and said he would go out and 
chop down bamboo poles for the supports of Jesus 
Christ's house. As for Chunder Singh, the farmer, 
he said he would give some straw for the thatched 
roof of Jesus Christ's house. So here were our Three 

124 



How Christians Prized God's House 125 




If you would gain an Inkling of how dearly these new Chris- 
tians prized God's house, then just read of the precious things 
they were willing to spare — no wonder they disliked to have a 
mere worm spoil it a41! 



Worm That Preached a Sermon 127 

Wise Men of the Christmas pageant bringing red 
gifts for the Saviour, you see! 

A certain Sunday was set when gifts were to be 
brought, and a wonderful day it was. For the Man 
Who Could Now See Out of His Eyes (because of 
those pieces of glass on his face!) brought mats he 
had woven: "Couldn't you use these palm-leaf mats 
for the walls ?'' he asked anxiously as he brought them 
up front to lay in the large collection basket. 

"Yes, indeed !" nodded Dr. Drake, kindly. 

A young woman came forward unclasping a neck- 
lace, a weaver brought several yards of shimmering 
hand-made cloth, an old woman brought some rice, 
an old man brought some betel-nuts; everybody 
brought something; Manikam brought his Christmas 
wrist watch — it was the most precious thing he had: 
not at all a ten-cent present in his eyes, but the richest 
of the rich. As for Machamma, how she wondered 
what to bring, for she really owned nothing at all. 
She hardly felt the Saviour would want her doll . . . 
she thought and thought . . . then she suddenly saw 
the little red hen. That hen had a history, for once 
upon a time it had been an tgg, and Machamma had 
found the egg in the roadway. The strangest thing: 
not at all where eggs ever were. Yet here this one 
was! So she laid it under their hen to be hatched; 
and surely from egg-hood through chicken-hood to 
hen-hood this little fowl was hers to give or keep; so 
she brought it on that solemn Sunday morning. 

Such a clucking and squawking! For of course 
hens are not used to being put in collection baskets. 



128 India Inklings 

But neither Machamma nor any one else thought it 
too noisy a gift; and Bonnie Aunt cried — the Httle 
Blot did look so sweet and serious as she pushed the 
hen down in the basket and wagged a warning finger 
at her : "Stay where you're put 1" 

Dr. Drake looked at the hen, at the nuts, at the 
fruit, at the rice, and knew only too well that some 
of these brown people might go hungry several days 
without this food. He looked at the necklaces, brace- 
lets and cloth and knew that here were givers willing 
to look plain and undecorated for the Lord Jesus' 
sake. So he said: "My people, this collection is so 
generous, it means such sacrifice, that we cannot spend 
it in an ordinary way. I think that I will buy the 
pulpit Bible with it !" 

"That is a good thought," nodded the men. 

"A fine thought," nodded the women. 

"A nice thought," nodded the children. 

For how were they to know how a church should 
look or what a church should have unless the Doctor 
Sahib told them? The old old woman liked it that 
her rice could buy this special Bible; the weaver liked 
it that his cloth could buy this thing needed in God's 
house; Nursai liked it that his posts could help sup- 
port the Book of Books ; the woman who gave a neck- 
lace liked to know that when she missed the cool 
"feel" of it against her neck it would be because of 
the Bible . . . they all liked it. Especially Ma- 
chamma. 

But you should have heard her father! "Where is 
that foolish red hen ?" he asked the next morning. 



Worm That Preached a Sermon 129 

But nobody knew. 

Granny did not know. 

The Old Aunt did not know. 

The Young Aunt did not know. 

The in-between aunts did not know. 

Pitchamma did not know. 

So the question narrowed down to Machamma : did 
she know? 

"Yes ! I thought it was my little hen, so I gave her 
away," she said, while all the stiffening left her knees. 
("But I won't let them wobble!" she said. "Jesus, 
don't let me be scared!") 

"To whom did you give that hen?" thundered 
Devidas. 

"I gave it to the Saviour," Machamma whispered, 
feeling quite sure that even her father could not get 
anything away from the Lord Jesus. But he could! 
And he did. 

He went right away to the Doctor Sahib's bunga- 
low. "That crazy Blot of mine stole a hen yesterday. 
It was not her hen to give away or to keep. She is a 
handful — ^that Machamma. But the hen I must have 
back." 

So the Doctor Sahib gave it to him. Carried by 
two legs all the way down the street, that hen clucked 
loudly in the most mortified fashion. 

"I will get even with you yet !" she squawked. But 
to Machamma she said nothing. Nothing! She 
pecked in the dust of the courtyard and Machamma 
watched her anxiously. 



130 India Inklings 

"You are Jesus Christ's hen," she reminded her. 
The hen nodded. 

"Just wait !" she seemed to say. And several times 
she even let down that curious inner eyelid of hers as 
if she were winking: "We have a secret!" So Ma- 
chamma was comforted, especially as Bonnie Aunt 
said that the Saviour understood perfectly how it all 
was : if there be first a willing mind it is accepted 
according to what a man hath and not according to 
what he hath not. This was a quotation from God's 
Book, she said. 

Meanwhile there was the sound of hammering in 
the air and the bustling of men carrying logs and of 
men thatching the straw roof, until one day God's 
House was ready. Not a church like your church, — 
with long rows of polished pews and gold organ 
pipes; for this congregation would sit on the earthen 
floor and the music would come from Bonnie Aunt's 
baby organ, which ever since being drowned that day 
had wheezed on certain notes. But what did that mat- 
ter to the new Christians in the Town of the Twisted 
Tulsi Tree ? They liked it to wheeze. 

Machamma hoped her father would not remember 
that this was God's Day. Sunday was still like Mon- 
day or Tuesday to him. 

All this time the pulpit Bible was on the pulpit table, 
waiting for Sunday. Nobody dreamed about the 
worm or knew that it was spending the week traveling 
from Genesis to Revelation. But early Sunday morn- 
ing a very old lady brought a wreath of jasmine flow- 
ers to decorate God's House, and when in sheer curi- 



Worm That Preached a Sermon 131 

osity she raised the cover of the big" new Bible she saw 
that startHng hole. 

"Alas ! Alas !" she cried, dropping her jasmine and 
hurrying out to tell the congregation that "our Bible 
is all spoiled. For who can ever tell now exactly what 
the Lord God wrote there for us ?" 

Such a disturbance. Wailings from the women, 
groanings from the men. A heathen visitor said sneer- 
ingly : "Your God will send a punishment upon you for 
letting His Book get ruined !" 

Another heathen said : "Evil spirits did this thing." 

"No," said old Nursai, who had just arrived, "there 
are no evil spirits in God's world. IVe learned that 
much." 

Yet even he wondered who could read the Bible now 
that a hole had spoiled the pages. But when Doctor 
Sahib came he looked at the hole and he looked at the 
people. Then he smiled. Actually smiled. So Ma- 
chamma knew that even a hole was going* to be all 
right; weren't Christians wonderful? 

Then church began. They sang the songs they 
knew. They prayed the prayer they knew, after which 
the Doctor Sahib said : "A hole is a very little thing. 
And a worm is a very little thing. Did you suppose 
the great Lord God could let a tiny worm destroy His 
Book? Did you not know that every word of it is 
written on some Christian's heart, stamped on some 
Christian's memory? So that here and there, wherever 
the worm has destroyed a word I can fill in that word 
from memory. Indeed many of you can do this, also. 
For see, I have opened at a certain Psalm where one 



132 India Inklings 

word is missing, yet I think you know it: The . . . 
is my shepherd, I shall not want?* " 

"Why, I know that" laughed Nursai, "that's the 
Lord is my shepherd." 

"Of course you know," said Dr. Drake. "Now 
here's a name missing from the prayer I taught you : 
'Our . . . who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy 
name.' " 

Chunder Singh cried : " *Our Father who art in 
heaven'— that's it 1" 

Which only goes to show you how two of those Wise 
Men were wiser than you thought, for although they 
knew nothing about the three R's, yet here was the 
Bible, written in their hearts! 

So Dr. Drake explained that even worse things 
could never wipe away the Bible, neither scoldings, 
beatings, persecutions, fire, swords, nor death. Indeed 
that little worm had preached a sermon no one could 
forget, neither the old old Nursai nor the young young 
Machamma, for the text of it was : "Heaven and earth 
shall pass away, but my Word shall never pass away." 



XIII 

HOW GRANDFATHER ATE HIS RELATIVES 

'VTOT that he knew he was eating them, of course. 
-^^ For Machamma's grandfather was not a can- 
nibal by nature, but as gentle an old soul as lived in the 
Town of the Twisted Tulsi Tree. Never had he been 
more astounded than on discovering that every day of 
his life he had run the danger of swallowing ancestors 
— raw or cooked, as the case might be. At first he 
simply laughed when Manikam told him. 

"This is one of those foolish new Christian no- 
tions!" he smiled in his beard, for he knew only too 
well that he had never done such an atrocious thing. 
When any one died who was exceedingly well-pleasing 
to the gods, that person might go straight to Nirvana 
at death, and be "nothing" forever and ever. But every 
one else who died was born again into a different body 
and sent back to earth to try to please the gods better 
than in their former birth. You never knew before- 
hand what new body you would enter — if you had 
been very good, then you might be born into a higher, 
caste; if you had been bad, then into a lower caste; 
or if you had been very very bad, you would probably 
be reborn into some animal — anything from an ant to 
an elephant ! 

This was a very unpleasant part of religion, because 
you never knew what animals your unfortunate an- 

133 



134 India Inklings 

cestors might be inhabiting. Therefore did a Hindu 
ever eat meat, or swat a fly, or kill a snake? *'0f 
course not," said grandfather, "we treat reptiles, birds 
and animals as sacred, for they may be relatives ! Who 
knows? So what do you mean by coming home and 
telling me I'm swallowing animals ?" 

"A wild thing to say !" cried the uncles. 

"A thing you cannot prove," said his father. 

Manikam looked troubled. "But I can prove it!" 
he admitted, "but for I have seen those animals we 
swallow. I have seen them through a thing called a 
microscope. A microscope, my grandfather, is a fat 
piece of glass. It is so very fat that it makes every- 
thing underneath it look fat also. The first time I 
saw a pin under a microscope I declared that what I 
saw was a big nail ! But no, the Doctor Sahib said it 
was a pin ; so I said he must put that pin in my hand 
and show me how the magic worked which could 
cause a tiny pin to swell to the size of a big nail, and 
then shrink again. Then he showed me. And it is 
no magic at all. Just the fatness of that glass that 
makes things underneath it look a dozen times bigger 
than they are. Magnifies them, he called it, and asked 
me if I would like to see a small drop of water mag- 
nified. Oh! my grandfather, oh! my father, oh! my 
uncles, that little drop looked like a handful!" Mani- 
kam cupped his palm to show exactly what space the 
drop could have filled. 

"Do tell !" gasped grandfather. 

"Mercy on us !" breathed the others. There seemed 
to be no end to the things these Christians could do. 



About Little Drops of Water 135 



Hul 




A\Vi I lii 



c.^. 



Well! Well! Well! 

These new Inklings about little drops of water threw Mani- 
kam's whole family into a terrible state of mind. 



How Grandfather Ate His Relatives 137 

"That is not all of it, either," said Manikam; "for 
the Doctor Sahib screwed the microscope so that I 
could see even more clearly, and behold, the water was 
alive! It squirmed with little wriggly animals. A 
thousand of them, grandfather! Maybe ten thousand 
of them — I do not know, for I am not good at figures. 
Anyhow I did not stay to count, for I jumped back, 
crying : *It is magic ! I am afraid. Let me get away 
quickly.' But Sathiavadam had come to stand beside 
the Doctor Sahib. Sathiavadam was a man of our 
own caste before he became a Christian, and he would 
not fill my ears with foolishness, for he said this was 
not magic, — it was science. Science is the law of 
knowledge about the things God created, he explained 
to me. Any drop of water is full of living creatures. 
If I didn't believe it, run out and get him some, from 
anywhere. Choose it myself. Ordinary water. He 
would soon prove that it was not enchanted, but iust 
naturally alive." 

Grandfather smote his knee impatiently: "Well, did 
you go ? Did you get it ?" 

"Of course, I went," cried Manikam, "I wanted to 
know. So I went for very good water. I went to the 
kitchen. The cook was making a cake and he was 
none too pleased to have me bursting in there until I 
told him what I wanted the water for. Then he be- 
came very angry. *Take all you want!' he cried, 
waving his hands in a fine large way, *take a cupful! 
Take a pitcherful! Take a tubful! I never heard 
such nonsense as these sahibs get off about water. 
"Boil every drop!" orders the Mem Sahib. Why, it's 



138 India Inklings 

good water, Manikam. It comes out of the village 
well. Full of animals, indeed! Wriggling, indeed! 
Bah ! I smile in my beard.' " 

"That's the way to talk!" said grandfather approv- 
ingly. "That cook has sense." 

"W-well," wavered Manikam, "you won't think so, 
long. For with my own eyes I saw the Doctor Sahib 
put a drop of this fresh water on a little clean slab, 
I saw him slip the slab under the fat glass and screw 
it down. Then I shut one eye so that I could squint 
through the glass with the other eye, for that is the 
way to see through a microscope, and, oh ! my grand- 
father, it wriggled! Ten thousand living creatures 
crept around on that slab. They squirmed! Ts all 
water that way?' I cried. *Yes,' said the Doctor 
Sahib. *Yes,' said Sathiavadam, 'and some water is 
even worse. Water from the Ganges, for instance. 
It is even more alive than this.' " 

"Then," said grandfather shuddering, "how dare 
we ever drink another drop of it? Our religion for- 
bids us to take life, yet here we have been destroying 
the creatures that live in water! Horrible of us! 
Reckless of us! The gods must be incensed at us! 
And I, who drank all the Ganges water I could to 
gain peace, oh ! what a sin I committed, what ancestors 
I may have swallowed !" 

"This is awful !" sighed the uncles. 

"Dreadful !" wailed the aunts. 

But Manikam tried to comfort them. "There is 
nothing to fear. The Lord God made the water. He 
made it for man to drink. One day when God's son 



How Grandfather Ate His Relatives 139 

was here among men He said: *I am the Water 
of Life, drink of me/ This just shows you that 
it is safe to drink water. Safe. But very interest- 
ing." 

"Unsafe! And very terrible!" said grandfather 
sternly. "This Christians' God is nothing to men of 
our caste. We have our own gods to consider, our 
own idols to please. What will they think of men like 
us who kill life every time we take a drink? I have 
never known unhappiness such as I feel now. We 
must give a feast to the idols, my sons. We must go 
on a pilgrimage. We must try to wipe out from their 
memories our wickedness !" 

Manikam sighed : "It lies in my heart to tell you the 
thing I know. I know that a brass idol is no more 
important than a brass bowl. He does not eat his rice. 
If he falls over on his nose, he stays on his nose until 
I pick him up. But the Lord God made the world. 
They tell me this in school. It is something called 
geography. The Lord God made the dry land, and 
He made the rivers and pools. He makes the rain. 
He made the sun, the moon and the stars. He made 
everything for us. There is nothing anywhere to 
fear." 

"The boy is crazy!" sobbed granny, wagging her 
head. 

"He is bewitched by those Christians !" 

"Ask Machamma," said Manikam; "she is only a 
girl, but ask her if she is afraid of evil spirits any 
more." 

Machamma was brought in. 



140 India Inklings 

"No, I'm not afraid," she said, "the Saviour takes 
care of me all day." 

Devidas grumbled. 

Grandfather mumbled. 

"This school business has gone too far," said the 
uncles. "If this thing keeps up we will lose caste. 
What shall we do about it ?" 

"Keep the children home from school, for one 
thing," ordered grandfather. 

"Give them a good whipping," said Devidas sternly, 
"We can beat all this nonsense out of them in no time 
at all." 

"Watch them all day," said the Old Aunt, "or they 
;will be running away to those Christians." 

Manikam sighed. 

Machamma cried. 

It did seem as if this was too much of a punishment 
all on account of one little drop of water! But the 
whippings hurt just as much as if the water had been 
an ocean. And they did no good to anybody. 

For Manikam did not forget school. 

Machamma did not forget about the Saviour. 

Grandfather did not forget about those animals in 
water. Almost every day he worried about them: — 
were they really in water? What were they called, 
Manikam? (Manikam had a great search in his brain 
before he could remember that the sick animals were 
bacteria; he forgot the names of the well ones. It 
didn't really matter — ^they were mostly sick in Indian 
water, the Doctor Sahib had said.) Grandfather puz- 
zled his dear old head — dared he take a drink? dared 



How Grandfather Ate His Relatives 141 

he even eat, when his rice was stewed in water ? dared 
he walk out on a rainy day — he might crush an an- 
cestor? Life was hardly worth Uving. . . . 

So he went to the temple priests. And the priests 
laughed long and merrily. "Water alive? What a 
joke! It is just one of those things that the Chris- 
tians say. They are always saying things about water. 
The Mem Sahib with the gold hair never grows tired 
of talking about the well. But it is all nonsense. 
Perfect nonsense." 

Grandfather was so relieved that he gave a hand- 
some present to the priests. They looked fatter than 
ever the next day. So did grandfather, for he had a 
square meal to make up for all the slim meals of the 
past week. 

"I was really frightened," he said. 

"So were we!" said the uncles. 

"And we," added the aunts. 

But Machamma and Manikam never said a word, 
aloud. Down in their hearts they were praying. 



XIV 

cut! cut! cut! ca-da-cut! 

TT seemed to Machamma that her whole world top- 
'"" pled about her ears. It just couldn't be possible 
that school would be going on without her ; that other 
little girls would be scratching sentences on slates and 
reading out of primers, getting wisdom, while she grew 
daily stupider and stupider — watched by granny lest 
she run away to the forbidden school, watched by the 
Old Aunt, watched by the Young Aunt, watched even 
by the little red hen. 

"If I only had my primer," sighed Machamma. 
Then more wonderful yet : "Oh, if I only had Blessed- 
ness !" 

She ventured indoors to see if she could tease money 
out of them to buy this Book of Blessedness. "I could 
read you stories from it, maybe !'* she said. 

But Granny grunted her disapproval: "Tut! Tut! 
are you so precious to your father that he will drop 
ten annas in your hand? It is a lot of money. And 
you aren't worth your rice, as it is! Always getting 
us into trouble, way back from the beginning: mud- 
pies, and that wretched business of giving away the 
hen. Drawing down the anger of the gods on our 
heads. And now asking for money — go away, silly 
-child!" 

This was no new tale to the girl who was only a 
142 



Machamma's Hen 



143 




Oh if only all the hens in India would be as cheerfully 
obliging as Machamma's, how wonderful it would be ! But smce 
there is only one such hen to ''buy blessedness," it leaves you 
and me to provide Bibles for all the other puzzled heathen 
families. 



Cut! Cut! Cut! Ca-da-cut! 145 

Blot, so she went out in the courtyard wondering if 
she had anything she could give in exchange for 
Blessedness . . . something that would not be missed 
instantly ? . . . no, not a thing. . . . 

"Cut-cut-cut ! Ca-c?a-cut !" clucked the hen, not only 
sympathetically, but obviously strutting around to at- 
tract her attention. 

"You hen !'* sighed Machamma. "Don't you remem- 
ber what trouble I got into once for giving you away 
to the Lord God? Well, I haven't forgotten those 
bruises yet. And you aren't mine after all, so you just 
go and lay your old egg if that's what you're cackling 
about!" 

With a grieved but dignified strut the hen waddled 
away; then, thinking to return good for evil, she 
turned around once more and clucked suggestively: 
"Cut-cut-cut ! Ca-c?a-cut !" 

"Go away! Go away! Can't you see I'm busy 
thinking?" 

The hen chuckled. She let down that funny little 
inner eyelid of hers and seemed to wink. "Cut-cut- 
cut !" she whispered. 

It was then that Machamma caught her inkling! 

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" she cried softly, staring at the 
scrawny little hen in complete surprise : "Do you mean 
it? You aren't joking? Could you? Would you?" 

"Cut-cut-cut! Ca-c?a-cut!" she replied cheerfully 
and teetered rapidly over to her favorite hiding place. 

Machamma flew after her and eagerly thrusting her 
hand in the straw, pulled out — an egg ! Warm. New. 
Fresh. 



146 India Inklings 

"Oh, thank you, dear, dear red hen! You don't 
need to cackle again. I understand. Oh, please don't 
cackle — ^couldn't you lay them quietly for several days 
without bragging out-loud about it, so I can hide 
enough eggs to buy Blessedness ?'' 

"Watch me !" winked the hen. 

One day, two days, three days, four days, five days, 
six days . . . and six eggs were hidden away in a 
very very secret place. But Granny noticed the lack 
of eggs, and the Old Aunt seemed everywhere at once, 
so Machamma dared wait no longer. Rolling the six 
secret eggs in a corner of her saree she ran to the mis- 
sion bungalow. 

Bonnie Aunt was aghast to see her : "My darling,'' 
she cried, "how could you do this forbidden thing? 
They will punish you again if they find out." 

But Machamma's eyes were like stars. *'Oh, 
Amma," she cried breathlessly, "I just came to buy the 
Book of Blessedness. Could I have it quick? God's 
little red hen will lay more secret eggs to pay for it, 
she's just as interested as I am — only isn't it too bad 
of her, she Tmll cackle so about them? But could you 
trust me with Blessedness until she lays enough to pay 
for it?" 

"Yes, little heart of my heart 1" Bonnie Aunt cried, 
kissing her and knowing instantly that it was the little 
copy of Matthew's gospel which she called "Blessed- 
ness" because she had been learning the Beatitudes in 
school so recently. "Here it is, dear. Take it and 
run home, God bless you." 



Cut! Cut! Cut! Ca-da-cut! 147 

"And bless the red hen, too," Machamma added 
anxiously. 

"Yes, and the hen! But don't try to pay me any 
more, just take the Bible as a present, dear. Surely 
youVe earned it. Now hurry. Good-by ! Good-by T* 

Machamma flew safely home and nobody dreamed 
what was hidden in the folds of her coral-pink saree. 
Except possibly the hen. She clucked in a contented 
fashion as if to say: "Well, I said I would get even 
with your father on account of that offering business, 
and I have!" 

"You're a little angel in feathers," Machamma 
sighed. And that very day she whispered to her 
mother: "See, this is Blessedness! Isn't it lovely? 
Feel it! Don't you like the cover on it? Don't you 
wish I were wise enough to read it straight off like 
Amma can do ? But I know how the word *^God' looks 
in print, so I think I will mark it with a pencil every 
time I find it." 

At the end of the very first day she was really ex- 
cited : "Look, my mother ! See how popular God is — ? 
He's everywhere in this Book ! I guess there couldn't 
be Blessedness without Him." 

And in the simple love of her heart Pitchamma 
thought this new God was certainly in her daughter, 
just as these Christians claimed He would be. 

Things went along so smoothly after this that Ma- 
chamma grew almost careless with her Bible, reading 
it openly. It seemed a braver thing than so much se- 
crecy. But the Old Aunt spied on her, and one 



148 India Inklings 

sunny morning a shadow fell across the page and Ma- 
chamma^s father stood there, pointing: 

"Disobedient child! I'll teach you to forget this 
Christian stuff! See that little fire burning in the 
courtyard? Go and drop your book into it — ^hurry, 
slowpoke !'' 

Poor Machamma. And the Old Aunt chuckling in 
the doorway ! With very unwilling steps the little girl 
walked over to the fire. 

"Oh, my father, I cannot burn Blessedness!'^ she 
said. 

"Drop — that — ^book — in — the — fire!" Devidas thun- 
dered. 

Then suddenly Machamma remembered the worm 
and the sermon it had preached in church. She opened 
her Bible. "Look, father," she begged, "see how many 
times I have found God written in this Book! Yet 
even if you did burn Blessedness it is written on my 
heart that same number of times. You cannot burn it 
out of me, just as you never could heat it out of me, 
either." 

Devidas snatched the Bible from her hand and 
dropped it into the reddest part of the fire — golden 
tongues of flame licked hungrily around the corners of 
the precious leaves — they curled up at the edges — they 
blazed up high — ^they blackened — they smoked — ^they 
died down — 

"There !" cried Devidas, "that finishes that !" 

But Machamma knew better. The sermon the worm 
had preached was comforting her; and her father went 
away muttering : "This is a queer thing I see with my 



Cut! Cut! Cut! Ca-da-cut! 149 

eyes, a girl-child becoming brave like a boy! I beat 
her and shake her and scold her, but the shine of 
something new is still in her eyes. What are we com- 
ing to in this town, anyhow?" 

Oh, it was no wonder that the priests in their yellow 
robes were getting worried! For on still evenings 
you could always hear the sound of the Christians* 
songs floating out of their church windows. And 
every night the Christians prayed: "Thy kingdom 
come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." 

On earth seemed to mean the Town of the Twisted 
Tulsi Tree! 

Grandfather noticed the difference. 

The uncles noticed the difference. 

Manikam did not boss his mother. Machamma did 
not quail before her father. 

"There is a certain polish on the faces of these Chris- 
tians," said grandfather. 

"That's it !" agreed the uncles. "A shining in their 
eyes." 

"A kindness in their hands," added the aunts. 

"A happiness in their steps," sighed granny. 

"I am curious about a religion you cannot hum out 
or heat out or hruise out," said Devidas. 

The truth of the matter is that although they never 
read a word of the Bible itself, yet here were Ma- 
chamma and Manikam being walk-ahout living Bibles 
at home, so that every one in the family could read 
this verse in Matthew's gospel : "Blessed are they which 
are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the 
kingdom of heaven." 



150 India Inklings 

^'Seems to me we might almost as well send these 
children back to school as to have them sitting around 
here with their heads full of these new ideas," grand- 
father finally said. 

"That's it ! Send them back to school," nodded the 
uncles. 

"School ?" echoed the aunts. 

"School!" beamed Machamma and Manikam. Oh, 
this was too good to be true ! They could hardly wait 
till morning. 



XV 

MANIKAM SHAKES THE TULSI TREE 

^TpHE most terrifyingly wonderful thing had come 
^ to town to belong to the Doctor Sahib. Mani- 
kam talked of nothing else, for imagine a tin bullock 
cart that could go without oxen! And go like the 
wind, too. Imagine feeding it at the front end with 
water and oil, then turning a wheel midway of the 
thing so that it went chuf! chuf! chuff at the back 
end ! Had anybody in the Town of the Twisted Tulsi 
Tree ever heard of a thing Hke that? Nobody had. 
What was it called ? 

"The Doctor Sahib calls it *Leezie.' Oh, how he 
does love that *Leezie' ! When he goes like the wind 
there is a tooter in front which wails 'Honk! Honk!' 
The heathen boys say the tooter is full of evil spirits. 
Heathen boys are so foolish." 

You, of course, have guessed that this curious mon- 
ster was a Ford car, sent to Dr. Drake by the churches 
of his denomination in America. 

"Bonnie," he would say a dozen times a week, "your 
old wish has come true — it is just as if there were four 
of me now ! For in one Friday morning don't I whiz 
out to visit those villages thirty miles away and whiz 
back again in the time it used to take our poor old oxen 
to plod to the nearest village. It's fine, feeling that I'm 

151 



152 India Inklings 

a medical quartet now! This will make the statistics 
look fatter. . . ." 

But nobody ever dreamed that the statistics could 
grow by leaps and bounds as they did on the wonder- 
ful day when a letter came from the Village of the 
Silent River. A wonderful letter which made the 
Drakes feel that playing Hide and Go Seek had cer- 
tainly paid, for this was the petition : — ■ 

"We, the people of the Village of the Silent River, 
are sending to you because we can no longer serve our 
village idols. After every harvest we have sacrificed 
sheep and brought our new rice to the Goddess of 
Abundance, but what has she done for us ? Nothing. 
We have sacrificed also to the Cholera Goddess and to 
the Smallpox God, but we still fall sick and many of us 
die. When our women buy new sarees they bring them 
to the temple to be blessed before they wear them, and 
sometimes the priests tear off a yard or two for them- 
selves. When we are sick or in trouble the priests 
laugh in our faces unless we bring money; they spit 
on the ground in indifference at us. Out of chips of 
wood the idol-makers carve us gods to worship in our 
homes, but they do not satisfy the hunger in our hearts. 

"But then came the Sahib Who Chases Pain, and 
the Mem Sahib Who Makes People Glad. We did 
not mind it that she had gold hair after we once heard 
her stories of the Jesus God. They reminded us of 
you. Like you. He healed diseases. He has twisted 
love into the hearts of all our village. We are of one 



Tin Lizzie Shakes Tulsi Tree 153 







Surely a Tin Lizzie never did a nobler piece of work than 
to shake the Tulsi Tree ! It gives you and me an Inkling of 
the mysterious ways in which God works, doesn't it? 



Manikam Shakes the Tulsi Tree 155 

mind in this matter. We would get down into the 
Jesus God religion. Therefore leave us no longer to 
the devil priests and to the wooden idols but come and 
make us true men of Jesus. 

"(Signed) Ramaswami, 

"The Braider of Mats." 

Bonnie Aunt could hardly believe her ears : "It was 
in that very village where they stoned me two years 
ago," she said; "oh, Harry, let us hurry out to them 
at once I Couldn't we stay a week ? Couldn't we take 
Billy and his ayah, and how about Machamma ?" 

"Manikam, too," said Dr. Drake; "I will see how 
their grandfather feels about it." 

Grandfather finally consented. Two years of watch- 
ing Christians had convinced him they could do no 
harm to Manikam. As far as Machamma went, who 
worried about a mere girl ? 

It was a task in itself to pack "Leezie" — plenty of 
bedding, plenty of food, three grown-ups, two chil- 
dren and Billy : would everything go in ? Everything 
always goes into a Ford, so off they chuf-chuffed in 
"Leezie," faster than the wind, to that little waiting 
Village of the Silent River. 

As long as she lives, Machamma will never forget 
the sights she saw that day. A hundred smiling people ; 
two hundred little wooden gods piled up to build a; 
bonfire ; four larger temple idols laid on top. . . . 

"We want you to burn them, Sahib!" they cried. 
And when darkness came, Dr. Drake struck a match 
and above the crackling of the flames and the snapping 



156 India Inklings 

of the wood he lifted up his voice to tell of the Lord 
Jesus, the light of the world. 

"That is good!" sighed the men. 

"That is true !" sighed the women. 

"We are hungry to hear it again, Sahib. Tell it 
again." 

It was a wonderful week, and Machamma often said 
to the strange girls in the village : "I, too, am a Chris- 
tian, but my family do not permit it !'* 

Little she knew the joy that lay ahead of her, or that 
Manikam's exploring nature was to bring a happy end- 
ing to her career as a Blot ! For Manikam felt that by 
this time he knew "Leezie" fully as well as the doctor, 
so on their return to the Town of the Twisted Tulsi 
Tree, Manikam begged gently: "Sahib, let me ride 
Leezie into town. I know all the little things you twist 
and all the little things you step on, and I know how 
to toot the tooter !" 

"Do let him," begged Bonnie Aunt, "but keep your 
hand on the wheel, too, Harry." 

So that is how it happened that a new chauffeur came 
rolling down "Main Street" that afternoon ! All went 
well until Manikam was about to pass his father's house 
and then he grew self-conscious. He put on airs ! He 
tooted the horn! He glanced aside to see if anybody 
was watching — yes, the whole family was there! 
Manikam was so proud that he did some little unex- 
pected thing, nobody knows just what, but "Leezie" 
swerved. "Leezie" crashed into something! There 
was a snapping sound ... a splintering sound . . . 
and down fell the Tulsi Tree. It was unbelievable ! 



Manikam Shakes the Tulsi Tree 157 

"Whoa there !" cried Billy from the back seat, per- 
fectly entranced to have an accident. 

Dr. Drake turned off *'Leezie's" gas, and he and 
Manikam got out. "Knocked her clean over, boy," he 
sighed, "that's pretty bad!" 

Manikam laughed : "Sahib, IVe hated that little bush- 
tree for years. IVe always wanted to do this, and now 
it's done. But I can't think what father will say." 

"I can't think what grandfather will say!" sighed 
Machamma, secretly delighted also. 

So surely this is the time to tell you how the Town 
of the Twisted Tulsi Tree received its name. 

For a tulsi tree, or shrub, is sacred throughout India 
to the god Vishnu — it is considered as his representa- 
tive. Manikam's family gave great attention to that 
tree which grew so near their door, watering it faith- 
fully, plastering the ground around it daily with fresh 
mud, hanging a lamp near it at night' lest it feel lonely 
in the dark ! When the hot winds blew" and the grass 
turned brown and the wells dried up, that tulsi tree 
received far more attention than the child Machamma, 
yes, even more than the boy Manikam ! For a shelter 
was placed around it, a porous jar filled with water was 
suspended over it to keep it always moist and green. 
For Vishnu was a jealous god — ^he must be pleased. 

On rainy days, from childhood up, both Manikam 
and Machamma had heard the myth as granny told it, 
about the woman named Tulsi who had knelt at many 
shrines in search of peace and had been so very holy 
that when she came to die she asked that she might 
be the wife of the god Vishnu. Vishnu already had a 



158 India Inklings 

wife named Lakshmi, who was so enraged at this re- 
quest that she changed the woman Tulsi into a tree! 
But Vishnu was sorry for this devout follower, and 
assuming another form, announced himself as Sala- 
grama and promised to stay near her. ... 

Of all the tulsi trees in India these villagers would 
tell you that theirs had grown the tallest; there was a 
curious twist in its top branches, for once a stroke of 
lightning hit it — bending it askew, but it did not die, 
so the Vishnuites nodded to each other : "A very good 
sign — ^that!" And when any of them came to die a 
sprig of the tree was put in their hands and the Sala- 
grama stone was placed nearby. 

It was this tree that Manikam shook, and swayed, 
and broke. Yet he was glad. But all afternoon the 
excitement in town was terrible. Wails of mourning 
could be heard as the people prepared it with great 
ceremony for its funeral rites. 

And that night grandfather fell ill. 

"He will die," said the uncles. "This is the doing of 
that boy Manikam. This is what comes of having a 
Christian in the family. Let us disown him. . . .'* 

"He will die," wailed the aunts — all except Pit- 
chamma. She whispered in Machamma's ear, and 
Machamma hurried down the dark street. 

When she returned there were men of the caste who 
beat tom-toms drumming in grandfather^s ears to dis- 
lodge the evil spirits. 

"You may do what you please with me, father," she 
cried, "but it is neither evil spirits nor lack of a tulsi 
tree that is making grandfather ill ; it is a real sickness. 



Manikam Shakes the Tulsi Tree 159 

A sickness to be cured with pills. Could you not let 
the Doctor Sahib give him some? Think of the man 
named Sunderaya who lay in a stupor three weeks, as 
good as dead, but white pills cured him 1" 

"Never !" said Devidas. 

"Never !" said the uncles. 

"Never !" said the aunts. 

And while they were sternest and surest, in walked 
Dr. Drake! In the middle of the night; with "Lee- 
zie" chuf -chuffing outside. 

"Stop those tom-toms 1" he shouted. 

The low caste drummers stopped in surprise. 

"Help me carry him out to my car," he next ordered. 

"But—" started the uncles. 

"You are deliberately killing your father by each mo- 
ment's delay. If he dies it will all be your fault. Come, 
take his feet, you two. Take his shoulders, you others." 

And the first thing any one knew the old gentleman 
was a patient in that tiny hospital, and five visitors each 
day stalked in and stalked out. But their eyes were 
open ! And their ears were open ! Inch by inch their 
hearts were open, too! 

Bonnie Aunt used to meet them one at a time every 
day: "He is much better, isn't he?" 

"So it seems," said Devidas. 

"Apparently!" the others begrudged admitting it; 
but what could you say, with grandfather crunching 
his pills and acting quite normal? 

Bonnie Aunt tried a present for each of them. 
Bibles ! They took them, salaaming. "It is medicine 
for the he^rt," ghe said, "Machamma will read it to 



160 India Inklings 

you, Devidas. Almost as good as a son, isn't she? 
Especially as it was her swift feet that brought the doc- 
tor to you in time." 

"My heart is drawn out toward these Christians," 
said Devidas one day. 

"Ours also," said the uncles. 

For seeing is believing! Then came the day when 
grandfather was as good as new. "Wreathe me a gar- 
land of oleanders," he ordered. 

Pitchamma wreathed them as fast as she could, and 
the next time Dr. Drake strolled into the hospital 
grandfather garlanded him! He also made a little 
speech : 

"Sahib," he said, "I must get down into this new 
religion quickly, for I am now an old man and very 
very hungry for peace. I thought I had peace corked 
up in my vase of Ganges water till Machamma spilled 
it. Anyhow, Manikam tells me that water is vile — 
full of living creatures. But this Jesus, how He does 
draw out my heart now that I know Him better/ 

"Mine, too," said Devidas. 

"And mine," the uncles echoed. 

So that is how a wave of joy started to sweep 
through the whole town; but the Christians in Amer- 
ica read only the one small line in tiny print : 

Converts for April 37 

For that is the way it always is with missionary statis- 
tics : they look so fiat and tame boiled down in little 
type, — unless, of course, we have an inkling how such 
lines get ready to print I 



XVI 

WORTH HER WEIGHT IN GOLD 

/^ NE year passed. 
^^ Two years passed. 

And in the third year Tim and Tom received this 
letter : — 

Salaam, you dear young Wise- Acres! 

Bonnie Aunt is so busy with Billy this morning that 
I don't believe she can write her usual letter in time to 
catch the next mail steamer, so I take my pen in hand 
to do her duty for her. I wish you could fetch your 
Seven League Boots and step over an ocean or two to 
see my patients in neat white rows lying in my brand- 
new hospital ! Richer-Than-Rubies is in the children's 
ward telling Bible stories; two dozen spellbound 
brownie faces lie there drinking in every word. It 
was worth waiting five years for — this hospital! It 
has big verandas with stucco pillars (verandas make 
it cooler indoors) and everything else it ought to have, 
especially a laboratory where Manikam helps me with 
labels and scales, etc. He's going to be a doctor, did 
I tell you ? To see him filling vials and shining instru- 
ments you'd think he was a full-fledged M.D. already ! 
On Fridays when "Leezie" and I play Hide and Go 
Seek, Manikam comes along to dole out the medicine. 
Really the greatest help to me, for I pick up the proper 

161 



162 India Inklings 

bottle and say: "Give 20 capsules to Old Man Crick 
in His Back." 

"Yes, Sahib," says Manikam, like a soldier at atten- 
tion. The time I used to spend warning patients just 
how to apply tonics and swallow pills is now free, be- 
cause Manikam does my warning to perfection : "Hold 
out your tongue this way, see? Lay the pill thus: 
Draw in your tongue. Close your lips. Gulp I Quick, 
if it tastes queer ; slow, if you Hke the sweetness. Then 
two swallows of water. Only regarding that water, it 
must be boiled, then cooled. Water that is not boiled is 
full of bad disease animals. . . ." We call him The 
Little Brown Doctor. He is doing splendidly in 
school, and in two more years may even be ready for 
college. 

I am disturbed that Bonnie Aunt has not sent you 
the lovely composition which Machamma wrote about 
her in our girls* boarding school, forty miles away. 
Perhaps she felt it was too complimentary to share, 
but I want you to see it — both to show you how 
cleverly Machamma is learning English at that school 
and also to show the dear influence which Bonnie 
Aunt has had on her. Our friend Miss Harrow mailed 
it to us. 

"the woman I ADMIRE THE MOST" 

"Amma is low as a American, but for India she is 
right high. Littler than the doctor sahib but higher 
up than Billy. The most beautifulest thing I have 
ever saw is her face. It is so pleasant. It makes 
everything so pleasant. When I go away from school, 



Angel Weighs Her as She Sleeps 163 




Wouldn't it be a curious sensation — to have an angel come 
and weigh us while we sleep? It makes us wonder if we would 
be "weighed and found wanting" like dear Tim or be "worth 
our weight in gold" like Machamma! 



Worth Her Weight in Gold 165 

Amma smiles me away. When I come back next 
morning, Amma smiles me back. When I are sick, 
Amma smiles me well. When I are bad, Amma smiles 
me good. If sad lady met Amma they are become 
joy. Her head do got on top all gold hair with sun- 
shine in it. And the sweetest little ears. Her nose 
is not high. One tooth hath gold in a lovely crack. 

"Amma came to our village across the sea for 
teach us. She is always busy of things that couldn't 
wait another minute. You cannot make stop Amma. 
Her hand is clever. It can cook more nice than the 
cook. It can plant flowers more prettier than the mali. 
It can sew dainty than the dirzy. It can squeeze with 
love. It can do anything. Even it can ride 'Leezie/ 
But it cannot slap and spank. That is Amma. 

"God loves Amma with a special. She is dearly 
in His sight. I pray Jesus make me 3 inches of Amma. 

"Amen." 

Well, Tim and Tom, we two grown-ups sat down 
and cried like little children over this quaint composi- 
tion, while Bonnie Aunt kept saying: *T am not like 
that ! It is just her love — oh, she is worth her weight 
in gold, that Machamma. Harry, we imisf see she 
gets a college education. She would make a marvelous 
teacher.*' 

"Yes, Bonnie, dear," I answered, "but college costs; 
and Devidas is poor." 

"Devidas is saving up his annas for this very thing; 
and I am saving mine! Pitchamma skimps the rice pot 
a little every meal, and even granny w^ants to learn 



166 India Inklings 

crocheting, so that she can sell her lace for ]\Ia- 
chamma's education. The ladies in our church at 
home are also saving, and I really think that Tim and 
Tom might like to help, don't you?" 

iSo I'm writing to ask: Would you? 

/You've always done a lot for ^Machamma, you 
know. First the postcard; then the doll; those scrap- 
books that you pasted on long rainy afternoons; those 
boxes of toys and trinkets which you always sent 
for Christmas with everything from safety-pins to 
spinning-tops ! Machamma would always get her share 
and treasure it! "J^st think! Amma's family in 
America have love for me that reaches way across 
the sea," she always says, hugging her gift in her 
arms. So we can safely say you've helped us bring 
her up this far — don't you want to go on with it? 
I thought I'd drop the inkling — turn it into a clinkling 
if you can, and send it to our mission Board Rooms. 

Love from your faraway 

Pied Piper. 

P. S. — Bonnie Aunt has just come in with news and 
insists on adding a postscript in the corner of this 
letter. 

P. S. 2. — A corner J indeed! Why, dear Twinnies, 
I have such a piece of news that it deserves a whole 
sheet by itself, for this afternoon Devidas paid me a 
visit. Of course I asked for Machamma, and he said: 
"Machamma is no more. I came to tell you." 

"Dead?" I gasped, my heart like a stone inside me. 

'*0h, no, Amma," he said gently, *'I do not think 
that Father God needs Machamma in heaven just yet. 



Worth Her Weight in Gold 167 

I think that He has polished up her face with joy to 
Hve in India. But Machamma — Blot — what kind of 
a name is that for a girl who becomes dearer than 
a son to her father? Bah! I will have no more of 
Machamma. It is gone forever, that old name; so I 
want you to write her a letter at her school and tell 
her her father renames her Santhoshamma — Joy ! Tell 
her it came to my heart that I should do this gladness 
for the Saviour while I sat in church singing: 

" *J^st as I am and waiting not 
To rid my soul of one dark blot. 
To Thee, whose love can cleanse each spot, 
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!' 

I like calling her *Joy>' <^on't you?" 

"I love it," I said. "I love it because it is true, 
and I will send it to her at once." 

So, dear Twinnies, we will never write again of 
Machamma; but I think you will be hearing many 
times of Santhoshamma. She is worth her weight 
in gold, dear girl. Did the Pied Piper suggest your 
helping us save up a fund to send her by and by to 
the Woman's Christian College in Madras? This 
P. S. is so long it must mean Please Stop ! Lovingly, 

Bonnie Aunt. 

The night this letter came Tim went to bed really 
upset about it. 

"I haven't got one cent to spare," she groaned as 
she snuggled her head in the pillow. *T have such 
a teeny allowance — of course I'd just love to help 



168 India Inklings 

save up for Machamma, but I don't see where 
the money's coming from . . . worth . . . her . . . 
weight . . . in . . . gold . . ." 

No sooner had she thought this than a curious thing 
happened, for two angels came tiptoeing into the 
room, and the first angel said: "Is she sleeping?" 

*'Yes/' breathed the other one softly, leaning over 
the bed. 

So Tim lay stiller than still, and looked as sound 
asleep as a wide-awake person can, because she wanted 
to hear what in the world was the matter. 

Imagine her surprise, therefore, when the first angel 
opened an account book, and said, sighing: 'Then I 
suppose we had better l^egin weighing her." 

*'Dear me ! Dear me !" throbbed Tim, expecting any 
second to be lifted bodily from bed and fastened on 
the little scales, (Those scales! Surely they were the 
very ones Manikam had used to weigh the idors 
food. . . .) 

"We'll begin with the candy boxes," said the angel 
with the scales in a most businesslike way, and set a 
box in the scales at once. ("It's empty/' smiled Tim.) 

"How much does it weigh?" asked the angel-ac- 
countant. 

"Thirty cents," said the other; "half-pound box, 
you see. Then she's bought chocolate almond bars: 
ten cents on Monday. Ten cents on Thursday. Ten 
cents on Saturday. Got it listed?" 

"Yes — that's sixty cents' weight of candy. Now 
weigh the ice-cream sodas." 

"April 2 she ^treated' three friends — ^thirty cents. 



Worth Her Weight in Gold 169 

April 5, chocolate sundaes, self — fifteen cents. April 
7, 'treated' Elsie and self — twenty cents." 

*'Wait a minute," gasped the accountant; *'you're 
going too fast. Does the girl live on sodas?" 

*This was Easter vacation week, you see," explained 
the angel. *'I suppose she had nothing else to do." 

"Oh, Easter F Well, wouldn't you think the mere 
fact that it was Easter would malce her place a little 
more weight on the Saviour's side of the account book 
than on the self side?" 

"They're pretty thoughtless at her age — " 

"Certainly pretty/' whispered the angel, taking a 
closer look at dear Tim. 

"But not a bit prettier than that little Indian Blot- 
Who-Turned-to-Joy 1" the other angel added quickly. 

"Machamma? Why, she's the loveliest of all earth's 
daughters in my eyes. Lovely inside her head as well 
as just on the outside, for when you weigh up 
Machamma you don't have to make any of these sad 
excuses ! She may be pretty young, but she's burning 
with one thought — to help every one in India." 

"I suppose that's because she has come up out of 
heathen darkness into a marvelous Light ; whereas this 
dear little Tim Laurence is so used to the Light that 
she doesn't realize it is Light. She does not see that 
it's worth passing on to any one else ... can't skimp 
herself to do it, evidently 1" 

"Evidently not! Yet I think she'd really like to, 
only she doesn't plan ahead. Easter sodas would have 
helped! And now how about car fares? If she only 
Started earlier to school she could just as well walk 



170 India Inklings 

and save much of her weight in gold, of course — " 
On and on they went, while Tim shrank smaller 
and smaller in bed. It was rather horrible. "To-mor- 
row I may not even be visible," she worried. *T must 
be one of those little small souls. Oh, I wish they'd 
stop weighing me. Fm so ashamed ... if they'd 
come back to-morrow night they'd find I have learned 
better ... if they keep on now there won't be any- 
thing left of me . . . all squandered on things. . . . 
I didn't dream I was a girl-with-so-much-money. ..." 
Tom woke her up with a pillow. He stood in 
the doorway grinning. *T should say that was a 
dream, Tim; you, a girl-with-so-much-money? Wake 
up, it's morning and I know forty 'leven ways to earn 
some dollars. Just wait till you hear !" 

And even if there is no time to drop an inkHng of 
the ways they earned those dollars (yearning over 
them, and burning over them, and learning over them !) 
at least you already know enough of India Inklings 
to guess what joyful things each clinkling will accom- 
plish across the deep blue sea — for Santhoshamma. 



THE END 



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